SLAMS 
OF LIFE 



Mi 



J. P. MCEVGY 




Class Tb^^"^ ^ 
Book /V^^G ^^ 



Gopyiight)^". 



°] I") 



CfiPXRIGHT DEPGSm 



SLAMS OF LIFE 



SLAMS 
OF LIFE 

nAJitk fyt{aLce jor Gill, and Charity 
• toward ^DVone 

Sissembled in T^hyme by 

J. p. MCEVOY 



^XVith black, ond white interruptions 
by 

FRANK KING 



Published by 
P.F.VOLLAND COMPANY 

NEW VORK CHICAGO TORON-rO 



,6, 






Copyright 1919 

P. F. Volland Company 

Chicago, U. S. A. 

(All rights reserved) 



OLi -3 !9I9 
^C1A535090 



In Which the Author Introduces Himself in a 
Few Well-Chosen Words 

I WOULD have had these verses published long ago 
except for the difficulty of finding someone who 
would write them. Finally I submitted the job to 
my favorite author who readily agreed to write the 
verses. I think he has done very well indeed. 

But, perhaps, I am prejudiced in his favor. It 
would be plausible for I have known him ever since we 
were children together. What a cunning, precocious 
child he was! At the age of twelve years he knew 
nearly all of the alphabet and could count up to six 
with almost perfect ease. 

When he was fifteen he could make change, but since 
then has had little opportunity to make use of this 
valuable knowledge. 

He celebrated his twenty-first birthday by completing 
a correspondence school course on the Slide Trombone. 
It was an easy step from that to the writing of humor- 
ous verses. 

Owing to the carelessness of proper authorities he 
grew recklesser and more recklesser, so to speak, until 
finally, in the natural course of events, he met a 
publisher. 

This book is the result of that meeting. 

It is useless for me to attempt to enumerate the 
many remarkable features of this book, therefore I shall 
do so. In the first place you will notice how each page 
follows the preceding one. This is planned so you can 
skip around more easily. Secondly, this book contains 
nearly all the punctuation marks now used in our best 
broad-A society. Compare the punctuation marks in 
this book with those in any other, no matter what the 
price. 

Another splendid feature: each sentence ends with a 
period. The publishers are to be congratulated for 
insisting upon sufficient periods despite the fact the cost 

17] 



of first class periods has increased three hundred per 
cent on account of the peace. It was necessary to import 
each period and some of them had very narrow escapes, 
indeed. However, it is with pride the publishers and I 
assure you each period is of full size and guaranteed 
not to shrink or lose its color. 

Most of these verses, I understand, have appeared in 
numerous magazines and newspapers who are to be con- 
gratulated upon their good taste, but who may not be 
mentioned here because of the obnoxious publicity which 
would accrue to them thereby. The author tells me that 
he has had great difficulty in keeping these magazines 
and newspapers pacified. They hound him day and night 
for his imperishable work and he spends a miserable 
existence tossing little hunks to first one and then the 
other, as they feed fish to the seals in the circus. 

There are some verses included which have never 
before seen the light of day. The author says they 
are good. We shall see. 

Acknowledgements are made to Noah Webster for 
the use of some of his words. 

My favorite author upon completing the collection 
of these verses asked me to write this foreword. As he 
modestly put it: "I know of no one who could possibly 
do it half so well." 

I beheve the man's right! 

J. P. McEvoY. 



[8] 



Ihis book IS dedicated 
to 
%{u ^jfQS Jiroilmr Jixymond's Sister 
Friend Wife (Herself). 



WHEN THE MISSUS GOES AWAY 

The grand old Colosseum, 

If what is writ is true, 
Is spraddled over lots of ground 

And scrapes the starry blue; 
But though 'tis vast and spacious 

I humbly rise to say 
My six room flat seems twice as large 

When the Missus goes away. 

From here to Ursa Major 

Is quite a husky hike, 
The Lincoln Way from coast to coast 

Is not a puny pike. 
But when the wife is visiting. 

And days drag on and on, 
My little hall, that once was small. 

Goes clear to Helangon. 

The roaming, rolling ranges 

That rove our mighty west, 
The Pampas of the Argentine 

Are lonely at their best; 
But they are close and crowded 

And riotous and gay 
Compared to my little six room flat 

When the Missus goes away. 



In] 



LINES TO A MOVIE VAMPIRE 

I sing today the Vampire of the Movie, 

I sing of Sheeza Beara — and she is — 
Whose architecture Doric 
Is a clutter of caloric 

As she vamps it in her transcalescent biz; 
I love to see her zaz a bit in Zaza, 

She writhes, she lures, she palpitates, she quivahs! 
You ask me has she got the props? She haza! 

She agitates my very lights and livahs! 

Them eyes of hern. 
Oh how they burn. 

Oh how they sparkle, snap and yearn! 
Them liquid coives. 
Oh how they swoives. 
It's pretty doggone hard on noives . . . 
She starts . . . she moves , . . she seems to feel 
The thrill of life along her keel . . . 
A rag, a bone and a hank of hair? 
What do I care? 

She's a bear! She's a bear! She's a bear! 
There ! 

I sing today the Vampire in the Movie 

(Them eyes of hern!) 
I tell you she's a regular Vesuvy. 

(Oh how they burn!) 
Her agile architecture is conducive to conjecture, 

(Them sneaky coives!) 
Oh lamp this lyric lecture 'fore her luscious lure has 
wrecked your 

Throbbing noives! 
On yon Paphian piazza you just ought to see her zaza, 
You just ought to see her, Yazza! 
Has she got the props? Cazazza! 

But she haza! 

[12] 



THAT'S A GIFT 

"Observe my bean," the Stranger said, 

"Oh slant the bulge of yonder brow." 
"You have," said I, "a noble head, 

A sterling coco, I'll allow." 
"Within that dome," the Stranger cried. 
Are countless gems of lambent lore, 
A flock of wisdom, true and tried, 
A mine of wit, a sapient store. 

"Behind my altitudinous brow 

A corrugated thinker sits. 
It's in a state of coma now, 

But gosh, it throws sagacious fits! 
For it is crammed with all the dope 

Of ev'ry book on ev'ry shelf. 
You get my modest view, I hope.'' 

I hate to talk about myself. 

"I know more art than any Taine, 

More Rome than Gibbon, Greece than Grote, 
More law than old Sir Henry Maine, 
More poetry than any pote; 
I've delved as deep as Darwin did, 

Beside me Euclid is a sham, and 
Socrates a weanling kid, 

I know more words than Percy Hammond!" 

"From which remarks I glean," said I, 
"You are a shrewd and wise gazook, 
A keen and perspicacious guy, 

A shining light, a gumptious gook." 
"You're right," he sighed. "My wondrous brain 
Is hep indeed to all the ropes, 
But still my heart is full of pain: 
/ cannot pick good cantaloupes" 



13 



WHEN WIFIE DRIVES 

When wifie drives my little bus 

She throws the gears in something thus: 

BLAM! BANCO!! BRRRRRRR!!! 

KERBINGO! GRRRRRRR!!! 
We crowhop then across the street, 
And amputate a copper's feet, 
And what he says is something neat. 

"Oh have a care," I say to her, 

She shifts the gears: KERBANGO! GRRRRRRR!! 

And tries for third, but slides in low. 

And runs in that a mile or so. 

At last in third the auto rolls, 
And peaceful peds climb up the poles; 
The children see us run amuck 
And get away — if they have luck. 
While horses, mules and dogs and cats 
Disperse unto their sundry flats. 

Down 

boulevards 
like 
this 

we glide 
and 
hit 
the 
curb 
on 

either 
side. 

And drivers glare and coppers swear. 
But wifie doesn't care a care. 
Soon to the crowded Loop we snoop. 



14 



Wherecarsarethickasonionsoup 
Andwifiehitsthelastinline 

they theirs get mine 

And get and I 

(u And then she rr 
^-^ jijSu punojB c« 

.erehwyna tsom ssorca skcab dna 
Of course I go to court next day, 

But first 
I drive 

Straight home 
This way. 



15 



BEWARE OF THE GEEZER WITH SOMETHING 

TO SELL 

When a hearty fellow hails me in the cold and clang- 
ing mart. 

And slaps me on the scapula, and hugs me to his heart, 

x-^nd cries, "Your amaranthine verse will live for ever- 
more. 

And when you larrup on your lute poetic shades get 
sore. 

And Homer hangs his humble head — he knows he 
has no chance — 

And Shakespeare's ghost goes out and kicks its prim 
Plutonian pants — " 

I say, if any geezer deals me chatter like to this, 
I do not press upon his brow a cacophonic kiss. 
Nor do I weep with sheer delight, nor fluctuate his fin — 
I coldly look him in the eye and kick him on the shin. 
And calmly beat it on my way, because I know full 

well 
This gonnif has Insurance, Books, or Real Estate to 

sell. 

Oh, oftentimes a goof will come and lean against my 

garb. 
And tell me I'm a Curly Wolf, a Woof-Woof, and a 

Darb! 
And tell me that my smallest squib commands his 

eager glance. 
And ditto with his cousins and his sisters and his 

aunts. 
And he has pasted all my gems in scrapbooks rich 

and rare, 
And would I give him just one lock of my ambrosial 

hair? 



[i6] 



Or if not that, my autograph; or if not that, a smile — 
A smile from one as great as I he'd treasure for a 

while, 
A long, long while, and when in after years upon his 

knee 
His great-grandchildren sat he'd say I smole a smile 

for he. 
But I don't smole a single smile, I bounce upon his 

bell — 
I know he has Insurance, Books, or Real Estate to 

sell! 

Some day a cunning coot will come with convoluted 

conk 
And drape himself upon my desk and sweetly he will 

honk: 
"I do not like your line of dope, I think it's awful 

junk; 
Your prose is quite putrescent and your verse is worse 

than punk; 
You've no excuse for living as you do, a worthless 

shirk; 
Why don't you quit this life of crime and do some 

honest work?" 

I say, some day a cunning coot will warble thus to me, 
And I'll be flabbergasted, sir, so diflf'rent it will be. 
And if he works me fast he'll sell me all he has in 

stock 
Before I'll have recovered from this unaccustomed 

shock. 
I'll have to kill him then, or else the secret he would 

tell 
To others with Insurance, Books, or Real Estate to sell. 



[I7l 



GOSH, HOW WE DREAD IT! 

They're cleaning house at my house, 

They're clarifying things, 
The rugs have beat it thither 

And the drapes have taken wings, 
The bed is in the cellar. 

And the chairs are in the yard. 
I'm sitting in the alley 

And the alley's awful hard. 

They're cleaning house at my house. 

And all our treasure trove. 
They're waxing up the hardwood 

And blacking up the stove. 
They're tinting all the ceilings 

A blue — or maybe pink — 
It has a wistful odor 

That has put us on the blink. 

They're cleaning house at my house, 

I guess it's for the best; 
The only clothes that I could find 

This morning was a vest: 
I guess I should be patient, still 

I do object, I think, 
To sleeping in the bathtub 

And eating in the sink. 



[i8 



LINES TO AN OLD SCHOOLMATE 

(Dedicated to Sheridan McCabe) 

My old schoolmate is sick today, 

Back home here in our little town, 
, And though around me children play, 

And lilac blooms are tumbhng down. 
And blossoms spray the apple bough, 

And I can hear the honey bee. 
Somehow my heart is heavy now. 

It doesn't seem Hke Spring to me. 

In spring we used to hook from school 

And fish all day in Sugar Crick 
Beside some cool and yellow pool 

Where the grass was long and the willows 
thick. 
Or we'd hunt frogs, would Sherd and I, 

And cook their legs in meal, you see. 
But now he's sick — I guess that's why 

It doesn't seem like Spring to me. 

If we could only tramp the hills 

Together as we used to do. 
Or dream beside the pleasant rills 

I guess I wouldn't feel so blue; 
But though the fields are green and gay 

With birds to hear and blooms to see. 
My boyhood pal is sick today — 

It doesn't seem like Spring to me. 

ISIew Burnside, III. 



19 



TO A STRAW CAUBEEN 

(Hibernian slang for Kelly) 

O, straw chapeau, when you were new, 

A crown of pristine beauty you. 

An argent cloud of shimmering sheen, 

A kelly fit for any bean, 

A nimbus on my raven fuzz, 

A luscious lid — that's what you wuz. 

But now your glory's one with Greece, 

Your grandeur is of Rome's a piece; 

Your primal pulchritude has blewed 

To vague innocuous desuetude. 

In other words, O straw Caubeen, 

You're on the fritz — that's what I mean; 

An evanescent charm you had. 

Too brief a time you made me glad; 

Like to the poet's poppies spread, 

I touched the bloom, the flower was dead; 

A gem of snowy charm today, 

Tomorrow just a piece of hay — 

O, adios, farewell to thee. 

Good-bye, good luck, and R.I. P. 

Out yonder stands a sad-eyed cow 

Who'll make a nifty meal of thou. 

And thou, a one time snappy dud. 

Will presto be a juicy cud. 

A common fate is that, alas! 

We die and fertilize the grass 

On which in sweet contentment browse 

A multitude of grateful cows 

Which give us milk which once was we, 

And to ourselves, we drink us — see? 

Straw hat, good-bye and R.I. P. 



THE PLAYER-PIANO UPSTAIRS 

My soul once was cluttered with gladness and joy. 

My heart was a haven of glee; 
Each syllable uttered was larded and buttered 

With gayfulness airy and free. 
My garret cephalic with japeries Gallic 

Was crammed to exclusion of cares, 
But all this has passed on the wings of the blast — 

There's a player-piano upstairs. 

And now ev'ry morning when faint for repose 

I hear its matutinal fuss. 
Which when I no longer may slumber grows stronger 

And stronger till madly I cuss, 
Yea, bitterly cuss the sarcophagus ghoul 

Who chauffeurs with murderous fin 
Insane permutations of sad syncopations 

Accented, I'd say, on the "sin." 

It tortures the Poet and Peasant all day. 

And Rubinstein's Melody F, 
And C. Rusticana that ghoulish pian-a 

Abuses in every clef. 
The Rosary, too, from its wallops is blue. 

And Killarney it tatters and tears — 
O, words are inutile and puerile and futile 

To limn that piano upstairs. 

And that's why my soul, once a clutter of joy. 

And my heart once a haven of glee. 
Are sadly senescent, with sorrow liquescent, 

A dunnage of dreary debris. 
My onion cephalic once gayfully Gallic 

Is now an asylum of cares. 
My loony medulla, alas! is the fool-a 

That player-piano upstairs. 



"TO LET — TENANT WILL SHOW" 

I do not like the gentle Spring — 
To me it doesn't mean a thing 
But pests who snoop around our flat 
And look at this and finger that 
And question us on things that be 
Peculiar to our family tree. 

All day they gawp at me and mine, 
And criticize and carp and whine, 
And open every private door. 
And pass remarks about the floor, 
Or rummage through the pantry shelves 
And wonder how we feed ourselves. 

'Do you get heat and lots of air?" 
And "Will they put new paper there?" 
And "What's inside that other room?" 
And "Ain't the kitchen like a tomb?" 
And "How many children have you got? 
They're such a care" — and all that rot. 

They count our silver, lift our rugs, 

And speak of roaches, flies and — other forms 

of animal life, 
And when they leave, they send their friends - 
The dam procession never ends. 
That's why I sadly rise and sing — 
I do not like the gentle Spring. 



[22] 



THE LANGUAGE OF CHILDHOOD 

We talk a curious language, now, around our happy home; 
The casual stranger thinks that we're gaflooey in the dome. 
The neighbors say: "Those McEvoys are going off 

their nut; 
They pull the durndest line of talk." And we admit it; but 
We have to dress our parlance now in baby-proof 

disguise; 
We have to watch our step these days; our child is 

getting wise. 

When shades of night are falling fast, as some one 

quaintly said, 
I used to blurt it out like this; "Let's put the kid to bed." 
But now I dare not say them words, them words I 

dare not say. 
For when she hears me mention "bed," there's simply 

heltopay. 
And so I have to do it thus — I speak in accents clear: 
"Let's p-u-t B-a-b-y to b-e-d, my dear." 

"Please pass the s-u-g-a-r," conserves a lot of spunk. 
If we said "sugar," Dorothy May would have to have 

a hunk. 
I dare not say, "Let's beat it out and see a movie show." 
I spell: "M-o-v-i-e-s; let's you and me g-o." 
And visitors are startled some at our peculiar cry: 
"H-a-v-e some g-u-m or c-a-n-d-y." 

It's shameful how her mother puts it over one so wee. 

With "G-o-i-n-g today to s-t-o-r-e," 

Or "W-a-t-c-h her pout; she's going to c-r-y." 

I think that she suspects us now; she's getting pretty sly. 

At any rate this spelling stuff has grown on me, I 

guess, 
For yesterday to "Have a drink?" I answered "Y-e-s." 



24] 



PREPAREDNESS PLUS 

I differ with the prophet who declares we're on the bum, 
That when it comes to fighting we're the residue and 

scum; 
We may not have a navy that amounts to 30 cents, 
Our army may be full of prunes and apertures and 

vents. 
But what care we for armies or for navies or for guns? 
For ammunition, strategy, or even sturdy sons? 
No enemy would dare to harm our humble habitats; 
We'd tell our William Farnum and he'd kick 'em in the 

slats. 

For have you seen our Farnum slap an engine off the 

track. 
And chase a mob to helangon and sometimes half-way 

back? 
And have you seen him stand a king upon his royal ear. 
And beat a faithful army to a palpitating smear? 
How gracefully he hits a big gazabo on the nose 
And presto! undertakers and some flowers and repose! 
So do not fear the English or the German or the Jap, 
Just notify Bill Farnum and he'll chase 'em off the 

map. 

Then let us offer up our thanks that this is even thus. 
Let's thank a kindly Providence for taking care of us. 
For handing us a Farnum to protect our kith and kin, 
A Farnum who can give the foe a swift one on the 

chin. 
For should a foreign country grow pernickity or raw. 
We'll laugh our girlish tee hee hee and likewise haw 

haw haw. 
Have we not William Farnum to defend the mountain 

pass? 
We have, and William Farnum, girls, can run 'em out 

of gas. 

[25 1 



WELL, MEBBE SO — I DUNNO 

They tell me these here Fourteen Points 

Will pacify the war-like joints, 

That there won't be no war no more, 

An' no more gas an' guns an' gore. 

An' all the pugilistic hicks 

Will put away their knives and bricks — 

Well, mebbe so, 

I dunno. 

They tell me that this here, now. League 
Will put an end to all intrigue. 
That all the birds on land an' sea 
Will in their little nests agree. 
An' 'stead of treating others rough 
Will bill an' coo, an' all that stuff, 

Well, mebbe so, 

I dunno. 

The Bolshevik, I'm told by some, 

Is not so altogether rum. 

An' others say the geek's a curse. 

While still more say he aint so worse, 

An' some say this, an' some say that — 

Do all these guys know where they're at? 

Well, mebbe so, 

I dunno. 

"It is the war" they told us guys 
When all the prices hit the skies. 
An' now when prices still increase. 
These eggs retort: "It is the peace"; 
Some cry "Supply!" — some yell "Demand!" 
They say we boobs can't understand. 

Well, mebbe so, 

I dunno. 



26] 



BAWP-BAWP-BAWP-BAWP-PA 

I've heard the sweet song of Enrico Carus', 
And the silver chin-chinning that Bryan can loose, 
And the soothing palaver that falls on the ear 
When a son of old Erin is throwing the queer; 
The lorelei lure of the larynx de luxe 
May tweak the tympana of garrulous gooks, 
But sweet as syllabical silver can be 
It sounds like an oyster in pain by the sea, 
For today my young Dorothy Mary McE., 
Said " Bawp-t)awp-bawp-bawp-bawp-bawp-BAWP-pa" 
to me. 

The Greeks in their time had of talkers a score 

Who slung a mean syllable over the floor, 

Isaeus, Aeschines, Demosthenes, too 

Bounced words off the welkin until it was blue. 

But great as Isaeus — and take it from Pliny 

He had it on Sunday, Bert Williams and Tinny — 

And great as Demosthenes, down by the sea. 

Whose words were as verdure that leans on the lea. 

They pale before Dorothy Mary McE, 

For now she says' *Bawp-bawp-bawp-BAWP-pa" to me. 

I hope when I turn in at last for The Sleep, 

And flit up the ladder so golden and steep, 

St. Peter will give me a seat in the rear — 

The gall'ry will do, where I'll sit down and hear. 

(Can angels sit down?) Well, no matter, I'll sit 

And hark while the cherubim warble a bit. 

No doubt 'twill be grand — they've had practice, you 

see. 
But all them there Cherubim singing their glee 
Won't tug at my heart, nor as sweet will it be 
As when she says " Bawp-bawp-bawp-BAWP-pa " to 

me. 



[27] 



THE GIRLS OF TODAY 

I wonder why the flappers wear 
That tired, bored and sated air, 
Why ennui sits upon their brows 
And nothing can their spirits rouse; 
Dispassionate and blank their gaze. 
And laissez-faire their weary ways. 

Chic little chits who yesterday 

Were giggling in their girlish way 

Are now sophisticated vamps 

With sinful, soulful, sea-green lamps; 

They've lived and suffered. Oh! so much! 

And life is a dead sea fruit they touch. 

So would the average man surmise 
From the hollow stare of their browless eyes. 
"These," he would say, "have played and lost, 
They've shook with fate and paid the cost; 
One by one in the awful gloom 
They've followed their hopes to a sunless tomb, 
There in the desolate dust to lay 
The dear, dead dreams of their yesterday." 

These lidless, lifeless saurian stares 
That meet your gaze on the thoroughfares, 
That chill your soul in the milling mart, 
That numb your brain and freeze your heart; 
Do they bespeak the souls within — 
Sodden souls of soil and sin? 

Ah, no, these children look blase 
'Cause Theda Bara looks that way; 
And life evokes a weary smile 
Because, just now, it is the style; 
They all mean well, the little dears 
But some one ought to pull their ears. 



28] 



SHOWING UP THE CARTOONERS 

I have seen a wistful victim 

Gaily belted on the attic 
For a minor indiscretion 

Or a sentiment erratic; 
I have seen him castigated 

With a dornick on the bean, 
With a mission-freighted missile 

Shunted swiftly o'er the scene; 
I have watched the pert pulsations 

Of a vibratory bludgeon 
On the flat cephalic onion 

Of a turbulent curmudgeon, 
But he never did his exit, 

Oh, he never did, I swear! 
As the cute cartooners draw him: — 

With his feet up in the air. 

I have seen a fellow-mortal 

Do a brodie in the drink. 
Take a header in the dampness, 

Try a Kellerman and sink, 
Yea, go down as would a biscuit 

Manufactured by a bride, 
Coming back to see the surface 

With some bubbles on the side; 
I have seen a fellow-mortal 

Go beneath the lapping wave 
To what fancy fiction writers 

Deftly call a "watery grave," 
I have seen him drown completely — 

Rotten luck! — but here's the rub: 
When he struggled to the surface 

He did NOT remark "Glub glub." 



I29I 



THE WIFIE'S NOSE FOR NEWS 

If the Joneses get a baby or the Johnsons get the pip, 

Or the Smithses have another family fight; 
If the girl across the alley gets a husband or the grippe, 

I will have the why and what of it tonight; 
For my wife knows when a tenant and the landlord 
have a jam. 

And why the man next door is death on booze. 
She is jerry to the gossip, she is hep to all what am, 

For wifie has a nimble nose for news; 
So she has, 

A nimble, neat and nifty nose for news! 

Does Tom Jollicks come home pickled she can tell 
you when and why, 
And the price they soaked Miss Smithers for that lid. 
Where did Sarah WhatyoucalHt get that shanty on her 
eye? 
Did her husband give her that? You bet he did. 
Where does Mrs. Beecher go (shrug! shrug!) and spend 
her afternoons? 
Why do Arnolds have to live on oyster stews? 
Who had tea with Mrs. Fletcher and departed with 
her spoons? 
Ask my wife, she's got the nimble nose for news! 

Yea, bo! 
A most uncanny, nifty nose for news. 

O, she knows that Mrs. Julip has to rouge and wears 
a wig. 
And Miss Rooney's shape was purchased in a store, 
That a young and handsome doctor calls a lot on Mrs. 

Figg 
(And she so healthy, too) — but say no more! 
And the Gores are sharps at poker, well, in fact they 
play to eat. 



30] 



And the clubs have sued that stuck-up Smythe for 
dues, 
O, the information bureau in my home is hard to beat, 
And harder still my wifie's nose for news! 

Some nose! 
Her nimble, neat and nifty nose for news! 

So I warn you all, my neighbors, I am wise to all you 
do, 
I am jerry to the whyness of your which. 
It is vain to flaunt pretensions, for I know your sala- 
ries, too, 
And I know if you are poor or if you're rich; 
I know all your secret sorrows, all your loves and all 
your hates, 
All your problems, your successes, and your blues; 
What your wife has told my wifie to me nightly she 
relates, 
And she's got a keen, uncanny nose for news; 

So she has! 
A nimble, neat and nifty nose for news! 



[31I 



BITTER LINES TO A NON-SKID 
AUTO SALESMAN 

You hound of hell, you're on my trail, 

You hunt me night and day. 
You dog my weary footsteps 

In a pestilential way. 
You haunt my busy office,* 

You hang around my home, 
I cannot shake you off my track, 

No matter where I roam. 

I met you at the auto show 

And foolishly I cried, 
"Your car looks pretty good to me," 

And then I crawled inside. 
A wolfish gleam lit up your eyes. 

Your fangs were crool and white. 
How happy I'd be now if I 

Had wrung your neck that night. 

For day and night from that day on 

You call me on the phone. 
Sometimes you hunt with other ghouls 

But mostly hunt alone. 
You send me letters, postal cards, 

And cables and dispatches, 
In avalanches, groups and scads. 

In bunches, bales and batches. 

You non-skid auto salesman, you. 

You grim rapacious spectre, ' 
Oh take your beak from out my heart. 

Your form from out my sector. 
Disperse, begone and leave me be, 

My life no longer mar; 
I do not want your gol darn bus, 

I do not want your car. 

*Adv. 

U2I 



REMARKS ON BABY SHOES 

Every morning — or at least 'most every morning — 

As I beat it to the cold and clanging mart 
To annex the beer and skittles that comprise my daily 
vittles 
Comes a warning from the wifie of my heart; 
Comes a warning and a tocsin and a message 

With a frequency that nullifies the news; 
"There was something for today — Let me see — Oh, 
by the way 
The baby needs another pair of shoes." 
"Shoes?" says I 
"Shoes?" says she, 
"The baby needs another pair of shoes." 

Now, the petals of the poppy bloom are fleeting 

And the beaded bubbles vanish on the brim, 
And my weekly compensation knows a rapid dessication 

Quite inimical to vigor, verve and vim; 
There's a transitory value to the plaudit. 

And ephemeral the honor that ensues, 
But the absolute quintessence of the perfect evanescence 

Are those frail and fragile things called baby shoes. 
Ain't it the truth? 

Those pale and puerile, weak, ethereal shoes. 

Oh, the shoes I blindly buy for sturdy leather 

They are fashioned from the wings of butterflies. 
And are merely held together by some forecasts on the 
weather 

And some female no's and other kinds of lies; 
And they vanish like the eggs of Easter Sunday, 

And they disappear in bevies, squads and slews. 
Yes sir, tempus sure can fugit I will grant you, 

But it hasn't got a thing on baby shoes. 
Alas, no. 

It hasn't got a thing on baby shoes. 



33 



A MODERN ROMANCE 

(I'll say it is) 

The sun was setting in the West, 

A quaint old custom it has got, 
Belasco batting at his best 

Could not have picked a better spot. 
He drew her close and closer yet, 

And closer still he drew and drew, 
"1 love you Aniline," he cried, 
"Do you love me?" and she replied 
"I'll say I do!" 

And hours passed and in the sky 
The argent moon on pallid feet 

Stole softly through the clouds on high 

(I think those first three lines are neat), 

And then he said, "I love you, dear, 
"My heart is beating fit to kill. 

Oh tell me that you'll marry me," 

And soft and low she said to he, 
"I'll say I will." 

And so to church! Oh, bellsome morn. 
And Oh, the lovely glad array, 

The victim pale and slightly worn, 

The bride, of course, and why not? — gay 

The preacher pried his book apart 
And read a fatal line or two. 

"Do you," says he, "take this here guy?" 

And sweet and clear was her reply: 
"I'll say I do!" 

P. S. I'll say she did! 



34 



WHAT THE AVERAGE MAN THINKS 

There are topics more impressive I will grant you, 

There are subjects more instructive, too, I know; 
Hypothetical abstractions which appeal to sundry fac- 
tions 

On the wherewith and the why-such and the so; 
Subject-matter categoric, pedagogic and historic. 

Oh they clutter up the tomes upon the shelf; 
All this wondrous information 
I should use in conversation, 
But — 

I much prefer to talk about myself. 

It is true that they are fighting in the trenches. 

And a spot has been discovered on the sun. 
That the trains are running largo since the recent 
freight embargo 

And the ban is on the bottle and the bun; 
And I guess I should discuss them on the corners. 

And gibber on the Ghibelline and Guelph, 
I should give them cogitation 
When I sling the conversation, 

But, I much prefer to talk about myself. 

I could talk of Homer, Euclid, Taine and Plato, 

Aristotle, Sophocles and Eddie Poe, 
I could make some fancy passes on osmosis of the 
gasses 
And a lot of other trinkets that I know; 
T could talk of old Directum and the well-known Solar 
Spectrum 
And Hypotenuses, Chlorophyl and Pelf, 
But there's nothing in creation 
That so fills me with elation 

As to sit around and talk about myself, 

Just me! 
For I dearly love to talk about myself. 



36] 



A PLEA FOR CHICAGO HUSBANDS 

A husband of the local sort 

Is not a handsome guy, 
He is an injury and a tort 

To almost any eye; 
But though the poor benighted pup 

Has neither charm nor vim, 
He begs you not to shoot him up 

For life is sweet to him. 

The members of the husband clan. 

If taken by and large, 
(And they are "taken" to the man) 

Are graceful like a barge, 
x\nd haven't half the mental weight 

That any wife has got. 
But still they firmly deprecate 

This thing of being shot. 

This casual, offhand sorter way 

Chicago wives have found 
Of winding up a perfect day 

By chasing hubby 'round 
With forty-fours that tear a hole 

At least two feet across. 
And leave a husband, rest his soul! 

A sad and total loss. 

An open season once a year 

When husbands could be shot, 
xAs in the case of game and deer 

Would be a happier lot. 
But wives, we beg you hesitate. 

Your daily shooting cease. 
For we would like to molt and mate 

And raise our young in peace. 



37 



GETTING EVEN 

The Russians sent a caviar, the Germans sent a carp 

And Italians the sinuous spaghet', 
The EngHsh sent a sparrow 
So our feelings he could harrow 

And the Spaniards shipped a Spanish om-e-Iet; 
And from France they eased a dressing 
That's no apostolic blessing, 

And the Greeks a Grecian bend that made us sick. 
And from Scotland came the thistle, and a lotion for 
our whistle. 
So America retorted with the pic, moving pic. 
And with Chaplin and his custard and his brick. 

From the Mexican con carne with the accent on the con; 

From the Cossack, curse his heart! we got the boot. 
And the blouses from the Bulgar, 
Chromotogenous and vulgar. 

And the Hielands gave us golluf and the hoot; 
From New-found-land came the codfish. 
An extremely oily odd fish. 

And Vienna furnished waltzes sad and sweet. 
So for all this provocation, we, in grim retaliation. 

Gave them Theda Bara's vamp and Charley's feet, 
Rather neat! 

Charley's custard pie, his padded brick and feet. 

The Japanese assaulted us with Fujiyama prints, 

And the Chinaman with suey a la chop, 
And with holeses full of wheezes 
Came the little Swisses Cheeses, 

While the Hessians furnished flies for every crop; 
Hung'ry gave us of her goulash 
Which is nourishing but foulash, 

W^hile old Ireland gave the shamrock and the stick! 
So in sweet reciprocation, we arose, a mighty nation, 

And repaid the bunch with Chaplin's padded brick, 
Padded brick. 

Yes, with Charley's custard pie and padded brick. 

[38] 



THE HIGH COST OF LICKER 

It used to be that one could get a mellow point of view 
From beaker, cask, or bottle for a dollar, say, or two; 
That one could purchase comfort and nepenthe by the 

quart. 
And the bill would not resemble a statistical report; 
One didn't have to float a loan or sacrifice the crop 
To get that swell reaction where you want to kiss a cop; 
The weekly snub would buy enough to clutter up the 

house, 
But now it takes a millionaire to underwrite a souse. 

The bibber of the bottle and the chauffer of the can 
Was once a lowly member of a poor benighted clan. 
And the clergy climbed his lattice with avidity and vim, 
And they brayed him in the mortar of the potent 

paradigm; 
But the beacon on the beezer and the inspissated 

speech, 
Once the signs of destitution, now a different moral 

teach — 
Now to see a lushy geezer makes my jealous pangs 

arouse. 
For today it takes a millionaire to underwrite a souse. 

So, reader, should you notice as you walk along the 

street 
A man who seems to suffer with impediment of feet, 
A man who stops before you with a light and airy 

mien 
And presents you to a tiger with a polka-dotted bean. 
Do not eye him cold and distant, do not bash him on 

the hat. 
For today the malted mammal is the true aristocrat; 
He may be the squiffy scion of an old and honored 

house — 
Today it takes a millionaire to underwrite a souse. 



[39] 



THE SONG OF THE MOVIE VAMP 

I am the Moving Picture Vamp, insidious and tropical, 
The Lorelei of celluloid, the lure kaleidoscopical, 
Calorific and sinuous, voluptuous and canicular. 
And when it comes to picking pals, I ain't a bit 
particular. 

At times I loll in languid ease, at others I am squirm- 

ical, 
My art is anatomical and also epidermical. 
I vamp the silly single cuss, I also vamp the married 

man. 
The placid, the tempestuous, the satisfied and harried 

man. 

My eyes are long delirious eyes, liquescent eyes and 

luminious. 
And when you look in them you feel just like you're in 

a stewminous. 
I send a ripple down your keel, 1 agitate your livah, 

sir — 
For I am most equivocal — with the accent on the 

quivah, sir — 

In short, I am the movie vamp, the sheezabeara 

tropical. 
The Scylla of the celluloid, the lorelei vox popical. 
In turns I am demoniac, appealing, sly and clerical. 
Ambiguous, sophisticated, wistful and hysterical 
But mostly you will find that I'm extremely tom-and- 

jerrycal. 



40 



LINES TO SUMMER FURS 

Absquatulating all night and day 
Along the, well, as you might say, way 
Around their cervical vertebrae 

I see the ladies 
Wear furs, that look, I rise to say 

Like Hades. 

Why the gazelles should sport the coy 
And epidermical pride and joy 
Of our zoological hoi polloi 

In such a silly 
Inconsequential, insipid toy 

Is one on Willie. 

The fair, in a manner of speaking, sex 
Would bounce on the unregenerate necks 
Of the soulless, heartless masculine wrecks 

Who said that furses 
Impugn the existence of intellects 

In she's and herses. 

But the echinated, hispidulous stole 

Of cuticle swiped from squirrel and mole, 

Siberian hound and tabby (pole) 

Is a good credential. 
And proof sufficient that fashion's goal 

Is non-essential. 



41 



LINES OF ENTREATY TO FRIEND WIFE 

Miss Venus (I have it direct from the bard) 

Was bookoo bambina, considerable pard, 

A luscious collection, a larrupin' lass, 

A lallapaloosa, an armful of class. 

And crammed and suffused with perfections, I hear 

A 36-28-42 dear. 

But think you Miss Venus would shine in the mob 

If poets had seen her eat corn on the cob? 

Young Dido, I'm told, was a coruscant coot, 
A cunning chiquita, a darb, and a beaut. 
The poets were loud in their praises of she. 
Especially Virgil, Oh, rabid was he, 
But granting her speed and no cylinders missin', 
And grant her deserving a stop, look and listen, 
Still Dido, the pippin, would look like a slob 
If she were observed eating corn on the cob. 

And Helen of Troy had speed, curves, and control, 
Full many a geezer she knocked for a goal. 
But she wasn't hep to the succulent maize. 
Which fact, I contend, vastly bettered her ways; 
For who could attribute charm, beauty, or grace 
To a girl one has seen eating corn with her face? 
So wife of my buzzum, pay heed to this blob 
And don't, I implore you, eat corn on the cob. 



[42] 



A SLAM ON SLAMS 

When weaving ruminative rimes 

To soothe the drowsy Sunday ear, 
'Tis quite convenient at times 

To have a tangible idear — 
To hold a figment, say of thought, 

A sop of sense, a feeble fact 
On which a stanza may be wrought 

And rows of running words be racked. 

As I remarked, exuding verse 

Of scintillating smack and snap 
In fabrication ain't so worse 

When there's a core of sense to wrap, 
Or flock of rare afflatus swish 

From out the azure, so to speak. 
And lure poetical ambish 

To zam the zither on the beak. 

As hinted in the lines above, 

The larrup of the lyric lay 
Is consomme for any cove 

With something on his mind to say; 
But when his gears are full of grime. 

And when he feels his engine miss. 
He merely grabs some words that rime 

And rattles off a verse like this. 



43 



NEVER ARGUE WITH A WOMAN 

I remember when my father spoke these wondrous 

words to me: 
'Never argue with a woman; it will be the death of 

thee; 
They are full of conversation, they are cluttered up 

with speech, 
And their talk is as the beating of the breakers on 

the beach. 
Socrates, the wisest human, though he tried it all 

his life. 
Never won a single verdict when he argued with his 

wife." 
But I answered: "Dad, you're flooey, you are vacant 

in the pan. 
Women cannot reason clearly — so they can't out- 
argue man." 

O, I really thought they couldn't, 
1 was pretty sure they couldn't; 
In fact, I knew they couldn't — 
But they can! 

Yes, the female of the species is more deadly with 

the -chin, 
And the way they sling the chatter is a grievous, 

mortal sin. 
They will talk on any subject on the slightest prov- 
ocation 
And when differed with attack you with extravagant 

elation; 
If you're wrong they'll quickly right you, if you're 

right you must be wrong. 
Therefore, don't be slow to say so, say it quick and 

make it strong, 
For they'll argue, yawp, and chatter, 'till you're 

dizzy, dazed and ill. 



44 



And you'd barter your salvation for a cure to keep 
'em still. 

O, I used to think they wouldn't, 
I was pretty sure they wouldn't, 
In fact, I knew they wouldn't. 
But they will! 

"Never argue with a woman," I recall those words so 
well. 
They will talk you to a frazzle, they will talk you to 

a jell. 
Though their logic may be looney and their syllo- 
gisms punk. 
And their premises be rotten, their conclusions full 

of bunk. 
And your dope authoritative and of stuff they never 

heard, 
They will quickly prove you're crazy and your line 

of talk absurd; 
And they'll dearly love to do it, love to talk you up 

a flue. 
Talk and talk and talk and chatter 'till your mind 
is full of goo. 

I used to think they didn't, 
I was pretty sure they didn't, 
In fact, I knew they didn't. 
But they do! 



45] 



THE CRIME WAVE 

I know we have policemen here, 

In this, our lovely town. 
Because I see them frequently 

Meandering aroun', 
And now and then, when I have time 

To read the thrilling news, 
I see where they have just unearthed 

A brand new batch of clues. 

A bank was robbed the other day, 

I mean another one. 
And all the bandits got away. 

With all the checks and mon. 
But our police were on the job, 

(They never nap nor snooze) 
And in a week or two they had ■ 

A lot of lovely clues. 

Most every night a citizen, 

Returning from his job. 
Is overtaken by a crook 

And hammered on the nob. 
But who could seriously regret 

The valuables they lose, 
When well they know that in return 

They'll get a lot of clues? 

Some people sneeringly deride 

The system here in play 
Of letting all the thieving thugs 

Go thugging on their way. 
They say that our policemen shirk. 

But those are not my views, 
I know the cops are on the job — 

Just look at all the clues. 



46 



MY WIFE'S BROTHER RAYMOND 

Perhaps you imagined Napoleon was class, 
And Alex the Great might get in on a pass, 
And Little George Wash' was a lala, and so 
Were Caesar and Lincoln and Newton and Poe, 
If you did, just forget it — they're all on the shelf; 
They don't class with Raymond, 

My wife's brother Raymond, 
He's got them all faded — she says so herself. 

I harbored delusions that Shakespeare could write, 
That Euclid could figure and Hector could fight, 
That Bach could compose and that Chopin could play. 
And Angelo sculpture and paint any day; 
But I was mistaken, I freely confess: 
They don't class with Raymond, 

My wife's brother Raymond, 
He does all of those things — only better, my yes! 

One day I took wifie to hear Elman play, 
"Reminds me of Raymond," she said right away. 
And when Paderewski had finished a valse. 
She said "Just like Raymond, but HE don't play false." 
I asked "Don't you think John McCormack can sing?" 
She chortled "Like Raymond? 

Oh, no, not like Raymond, 
He'll do, but my brother's the regular thing." 

Attila, Ossian, Elijah and Saul, 

Copernicus, Newton and Peter and Paul, 

Elias, Vespasian, Brian Boru, 

And Lydia Pinkham and Henry Ford, too, 

You all did your best, but the best that you did 

Would never feaze Raymond, 

My wife's brother Raymond, 
He'd do it while resting, the marvelous kid. 



48 



My wants they are few and they're small in the pod, 

I long not for acres, not even a clod, 

I yearn not for riches, nor hanker for fame, 

A pot now and then is enough in the game, 

I've just one ambition: some day may my wife 

Compare me with Raymond, 

Say "You're just Hke Raymond!" 
Then I'll die content — I'll have made good in life. 



49 



THE BRILLIANT ICEMAN 

I used to think my iceman was 
A regular Philistine, 

That vegetable ivory- 
Composed his oblate bean, 

That he was sorter balmy, too. 
And wormy in the nut, 

A cuckoo in the coco . . . yes, 
I used to think this, but . . . 

I know I was in error then 

When foresaid thoughts I thunk. 
When 'neath that rough exterior 

I saw but human junk, 
When I mistook his purest gold 

For FeS2 dross. 
My apprehension was at fault — 

He's quite another hoss. 

My iceman has an intellect 

Of most stupendous size, 
A comprehension, keen, alert, 

A vision, broad and wise; 
And from his pupils shining forth 

I see a soul that's free, 
A soul of pulchritude and worth 

And rare sagacity. 

Behind his broad and ample brow 

There sits a noble nut 
That rules with perspicacity 

His cunning occiput; 
How do I know that he's so keen. 

Whom once I thought so light? 
Well, yesterday I heard him say 

He likes the stuff I write. 



50 



LINES TO THOSE QUEER AND CURIOUS COOTS 
WHO ROAM THE STREETS IN BATHING SUITS 

I do not know why you should stalk 
Along the boulevard and walk 
Arrayed in suits that unawares 
Reveal the trend of your affairs — 
I do not know why this should be, 
It surely ain't no treat to me. 

The bathing suits in which you dress 

Are nothing much and mostly less, 

And as you saunter to and fro 

A lot of family traits they show 

To unappreciative eyes 

Who view them with a mild surprise. 

Perhaps you have the inward wish 

Your anatomic exhibish', 

Your epidermical display 

Will sorter steal my sense away 

And make my heart go pluck-a-pluck; 

If such you wish, you're out of luck. 

Your dripping passage down the street 

Does not excite to fever heat. 

Your coy and cute cutaneous splurge 

Impels in me no naughty urge. 

The moist contagion of your charms 

Would lure no boys from off the farms. 

You corpulent and sylph-like coots 
Who run the streets in bathing suits, 
Your rutilant al fresco coives 
Are anaesthetic to my noives. 
My brow is cool and dry my palm, 
I view you with exceeding calm. 
Why do you roam so far and free — 
You ain't no treat, that I can see. 

[51] 



LINES TO J. P. JUNIOR 

My little son, 

Your sentence on this earth has just begun, 

You have a long and toilsome race to run. 

And it's but fair to tell you here and now 

This ain't the best of worlds, no way, nohow; 

Because you have it pretty soft today 

You think, perhaps, 'twill always be that way. 

And every one that you will ever know 

Will be as good to you as Doctor Stowe, 

But listen, bo, it isn't so. 

The world ain't built on no such gorgeous plan; 

You'll have to be a self-assertive man. 

You bet, 

And fight likehel for everything you get. 

And light all spraddled out in every fray. 

For life down here is not a holiday. 

And he who totes the bacon to his den 

Is he who has it on his fellow men. 

My little son, 

If you would cop the daily bread and bun 

Don't figure on a soft and soothing time. 

There's no such thing, believe this simple rime. 

You'll find existence is a kind of bacon-biz. 

With streaks of lean and fat 

And this and that, 

Like gloom and gladness, salve and sop, and sting 

And everything. 

And people lurking on the thoroughfare 

To take you in and also unaware 

And bounce a brick where you divide your hair. 

And friends you'll find 

Of every kind. 

The false and true. 

And of the former lots. 

The latter few. 



52 



And of your friends you'll find before you're done. 
Your first will be your best and truest one, 
And that friend is your mother, little son. 

My little son, 

The goal is far from easily won, 

The road is long and hard that stretches there. 

The race not to the swift but to the fair; 

So play the game and play it on the square. 

Then, even if the twilight of your day 

Should find you with the goal still far away. 

You need not care. 

For better than the goal ignobly won 

Is the race that's lost but still was fairly run. 



53 



A LIL' OU PORTERHOUSE STEAK 

O, the Romans of old, they were strong for the eats, 

And they dined upon squab from Algiers; 
And they reveled in rivers of humming bird livers 

And swordfishes' fricasseed ears. 
Each p. m. at i they'd have nightingale stew 

And a butterfly bake by the lake. 
But sad was the lot of these guys — they knew not of 

The HI' ol' porterhouse steak, Yes, yes. 

Of the HI' ol' porterhouse steak. 

The nosebags Olympic of asphodel fields 

Held ambrosia and nectar divine, 
A heavenly hash with a Jovian dash. 

But I'd scoffs at such fodder for mine! 
No Paphian pabulum, sir, could suffice 

To satiate, surfeit, or slake 
The keen appetite of the fortunate wight 

Who has tasted the porterhouse steak. Aye! Aye! 

The HI' ol' porterhouse steak. 

A HI' ol' porterhouse steak, if you please. 

But thicker, a trifle, than that. 
As tender as Flora and pink as Aurora, 

With nuggets of unctuous fat; 
Please broil it to cage all the juices within it — 

(Don't season while cooking!) now take 
Your dreamy, delicious (but highly nutritious) 

Your HI' ol' porterhouse steak, Ye Gods! 

Your HI' ol' porterhouse steak! 

And that's why I zam on my zither today 

No gross Sybaritical song, 
For such, ain't it, Mawruss? I leave it to Horace 

And Horace is there with it strong; 
I long but to larrup my lyre to say 

That Lucullian eats were a fake. 
And I back by all odds, sir, that food of the gods, sir, 

A HI' ol' porterhouse steak, Yes, yes, 

A HI' ol' porterhouse steak! 

[54] 



A MAN'S BEST PRESS AGENT— HIS MOTHER 

Oh, others may chortle and call me a failure, 

And smile while I gather my Lilliput' pile. 
And sneer in derision: "That clutter of kale you're 

Annexing is puny and not worth the while!" 
And maybe they're right when they say I'm no demon, 

And that I will never be warmer than fair; 
Perhaps they are right and perhaps they are dreamin', 

But mother — she knows I'm a regular bear. 
Ah, yes, sir, my mother just KNOWS I'm a bear. 

My mother is sure I'm the High Cockalorum, 

That I am the Fount and the Wellspring of Lore, 
When she is around I am sure of a quorum. 

An audience she whom I never can bore. 
The others get tired of hearing my chatter. 

They say all my goods were deceased on the shelf; 
They call me a flivver — but that doesn't matter. 

My mother knows diff'rent, she says so herself. 
Oh, yes, sir, my mother will tell you herself! 

My voice is not built to inspire emotion — 

Emotion, that is, of a lovelier kind; 
When sicked upon others they leap in the ocean. 

But mother just loves it — she says "it's refined." 
I'm not a Beethoven, a Shakspeare, nor Chaucer, 

Nor even a Whistler — of that there's no doubt! 
But did they do anything I couldn't? Naw, sir! 

Just take it from mother, she'll tell you right out! 
Just listen to mother, SHE'LL tell you, old scout. 

So what do I care if you say I'm a filbert? 

Oh, what do I care if you censure my stuff? 
My mother has told me I'm better than Gilbert, 

She says in comparison Milton is gufi^. 
I guess I should bibble, and stew, fret, and pine, sir. 

Because for my talents the people don't care. 
I may not be able to spear what is mine, sir. 

But mother believes I'm a regular bear; 
Yes, mother, God bless her! just knows I'm a bear. 

[55] 



GOD GIVE US MEN! 

God give us men in times like these: 
To keep our flag upon the seas, 
To bring it through that warring hell 
Of screaming steel and splintering shell 
To Victory and to peace again. 
God give us men, 

God give us men. 

God give us men in times like these: 

No craven cowards on their knees 
- But fearless men, erect, four-square, 

With hands to do and hearts to dare; 

Come on! Your country cries again: 
"God give us men, 

God give us men!" 

"God give us men in times like these," 

The Stars and Stripes shout to the breeze; 
"Fearless and valiant, terrible, just. 
We've never trailed in the bitter dust. 
But give us men, or else we must" — 
Hark! 'Tis the Stars and Stripes again: 
"God give us men, 

God give us men!" 
April <5, 1 917. 



56 



THERE IS NO DEATH 

There is no Death! The leaves that fade 

And softly drift to silent doom 
Are not to cold oblivion laid 

In some forsaken, hopeless tomb — 
They are not dead; 'neath snow and rain 

They live, and with the Spring's first breath 
All glorified they'll come again — 

There is no Death! 

There is no Death! The boys who pass 

Like falling stars in glory's glow 
Will live again when dewy grass 

And poppies on those craters grow; 
When all the world is fair and free 

Because they gave their soul's own breath. 
They'll live in millions yet to be — 

There is no Death! 



(571 



A JEREMIAD ON LAUNDRIES 

I had some passionate pink pajams, 

Some chromotogenous hose, 
Some tasty, trim, and tricksy ties. 

And other superlative clothes; 
But as I rode the kivered cars 

O'erdark my clotheses grewed; 
I sent them to a laundaree — 

If I had only knewed! 
For today I got my bundle 

From that haunt of noisome ill, 
And inclosed I found a bunch of rags, 

A button — and a bill! 

Chorus — 
O, shun, my son, the laundaree, that evil omened boid. 
For a laundry is a place you send your clothes to be 

destroyed. 

I had a snappy Palm Beach suit — 

It snugly draped my lattice. 
It was a beatific beaut'; 

But hold! Enough! Jam satis! 
I loved that suit, I loved that suit, 

I loved it Hke a son, 
I've followed the hearse of all my hopes, 

I've buried them one by one, 
For to a demoniacal laundaree 

I sent my Httle pard — 
Today I got my Palm Beach suit 

Upon a postal card. 

Chorus — 
O, grewsome, grim, and ghoulish is that evil omened 

boid, 
A laundaree — that place you send your clothes to be 

destroyed. 

[58] 



Of noble shirts I had some three, 

Each silHk, yes, and new. 
Of lambent luminosity 

And opalescent hue, 
A polychromatic pooh pooree,* 

A regular solar spectrum, 
A gorgeous, colorful shivaree — 

Buh-lieve me, I select 'em! 
But Oh, one shirt grew darkful. 

And a laundry grabbed it, certes! 
Today I got my buttons back — 

I don't know where the shirt is. 

Chorus — 
For a laundry is a place you send your clothes to be 

destroyed, 
x^ place you send your clothes to be destroyed. 



* Back o' th' Yards accent. 



59 



A WASHINGTON D. C, TRAGEDY 

It was a private soldier, 

In Washington, D. C, 
Who, dying on the avenue. 

This story told to me; 
This sad and wistful story. 

This narrative of gloom 
That touched upon the circumstance 

That led him to his doom. 

*T am a simple private," 

He murmured unto me, 
"And I am the only private 
In Washington, D. C. 
The rest are first lieutenants 

With spurs and riding boots 
And all day long they've hounded me 
To give them some salutes. 

"I did the best I could, sir. 

From early morn till night, 
I worked my tried and trusty arm 

For every "lieut." in sight. 
But "Lieuts" came fast and faster 

And more and more and more, 
And nary another private came 

To help me with my chore. 

"And now, alas I'm dying — 

I could not stand the pace — 
And I must die with one regret; 

There's none to take my place . . ." 
His voice grew faint and fainter — 

"O Gawd, my arm is sore. 
Tell mother . . . Andrew done ... his ... bit 
To help ... to win the . . . war." 



60 




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'rm^ Mm 







AN IMPORTANT EVENT 

I was fathoms deep in cogent cogitation, 

I had just put Old Afflatus on the mat, 
And estabhshed a connection 
With a potent retrospection 

Appertaining to and touching this and that; 
I was lost I say in lambent lucubration, 

And my thinker (yes, it is) was going some, 
When the wife rushed in a-crying: 
'Stop that foolish versifying, 

Come and look. The baby's learned to suck her 
thumb." 

And the message she exuded it was truthful, 

And the words were gems of rare veracitee. 
For our airy little fairy 
Had unhinged a maxillary 

And inserted in the cunning cavitee. 
Had inserted in the consequential chasm. 

In the aperture resulting thusly from 
Her precocious dilatation 
Of her means of mastication, 

Had inserted — shall I say it? Yes! — her thumb! 

You may wonder that I gazed in admiration? 

You may marvel that I stared with oh's and ah's. 
With astonishment prodigious 
As my cunning little squidjus 

Placed her thumb within the province of her jaws? 
But I tell you that my pride is most preposterous, 

And my exhaltation simply strikes me dumb, 
I just stand with glowing buzzum 
For my darling fuzzum-wuzzum 

Has discovered how to suck her little thumb, 
By gum! 

The little slickerine can suck her thumb! 



62 



SOME MUSINGS ON NATURAL HISTORY 

Birds 
For birds I entertain a care, 
I like the way they take the air, 
Their singing soothes my inner ear, 
And I am pleased when they appear 
In crimson feathering and blue. 
In short I think that birds will do; 
But they eat worms, which proves, I'm sure. 
Their taste is far from epicure. 

Squirrels 
I quite approve of squirrels, I think. 
Although I'd much prefer them pink; 
Their teeth are sharp, their fur are soft 
And nimbly they can shin aloft; 
But I can't understand why they 
Should chew on hard-shelled nuts all day, 
When they could find much softer eats, 
Like peas, bananas, soup and beets. 

Worms 
I would not for a single term 
Agree to underwrite the worm; 
The way he rises after rains 
Is proof to me he has no brains; 
For he is stepped on in his flight 
Which must be quite distressing, quite; 
Another reason why I think 
The garden worm's a silly gink. 
His chassis is assembled wrong 
And his wheelbase it is much too long. 

People 
People are nice, but then I fear 
There are too many people here, 
When one would watch a function gay. 
They're always standing in your way; 
And when in need of much repose 
They park themselves upon your toes. 
I think they're ordinary, too. 
And that includes myself and you. 
[63] 



THE HIGHER THE BROW THE LESS IT SWEATS 

Sing of the Bunions of Toil, 

Warble the Man with the Hoe, 
Hokum's according to Hoyle, 

But gimme the Man with the Dough! 
Gimme the Guy with the Green, 

Gimme the Jay with the Junk, 
Gimme the Shekels Serene — 

This Bunions of Toil is the Bunk. 

Hammer your lyre to bits. 

Warble the Luke in the Loom, 
Sing of the Corns on his Mitts, 

But gimme the Mighty Mazum'! 
Gimme the Goof with the Gold, 

Gimme the Toff with the Tin. 
Hoes may be noble to hold 

But gimme a Five in the Fin. 

Salt is the Sweat of the Serf, 

Scant is the glory he gleans. 
His toeses are out on the turf. 

He battens his belly with beans. 
Sing you the Man with the Hoe? 

Sing him, you Sonuvagun! 
But gimme the Man with the Dough, 

Gimme the Guv with the Mon. 



64] 



"NO, NO, DOWNTOWN, POP-EYE, 
TAY HOME" 

Each morn when I've ruined some ham and some eggs 

And stowed 'em all under my hatch. 
And draped the remains of my coat round my legs 

And crowned with a kelly my thatch, 
I say to my daughter: "Now, Pop-eye must go. 

Downtown to his work he must roam. 
And make you some taters." But daughter cries, "No! 

No, no, downtown, Pop-eye; tay home!" 

You'd wonder if you were to gaze from afar 

And see what I drew for a face. 
Why Dorothy Mary should think me a star 

And cry when I'm leaving the place. 
"I'll say that he sorter oppresses the eyes," 

Would peregrinate through the dome, 
"It ain't for his beauty that Dorothy cries: 

"'No, no downtown. Pop-eye; tay home.'" 

It ain't for his beauty! How utterly utt, 

Sagacious and keen and profound! 
But what do I care if I look like a mutt. 

As long as she likes me around? 
So long as she'll have me — and may that be long, — 

I know I won't hunger to roam, 
For there's just a wee tear and a pang in her song: 

"No, no, downtown, Pop-eye; tay home." 



I65] 



WE MEET, BUT DO NOT SPEAK 

We do not speak, the wife and I, 

We meet, but do not speak; 
Our one-time happy habitat 

Is desolate and bleak. 
A deep sepulchral silence reigns 

Within our humble hut, 
Where lightsome chatter fluttered once 

There now is nary flut. 

Perhaps you wonder what became 

Of our esprit d'corps, 
And why vamoosed the dove of peace 

From our domestic shore. 
If so your wonder cease a while, 

And read this deathless squeak. 
And you will know then why we meet. 

And pass — but do not speak. 

Upon a lot adjoining us, 

A lot of luscious loam, 
I planted onions, beets and things 

To garnish up my home. 
To load my table with its yield — 

Its succulent and bright 
Convention of comestibles 

Of esculent delight. 

One fatal day wife volunteered 

To help subdue the weeds. 
And with a cruel, vicious hoe 

She dug up all my seeds. 
And cut down each potato stalk, 

Each onion, corn and leek. 
She thought them weeds, so now we meet 

And pass — but do not speak. 



66 



THE FLU 

When your back is broke and your eyes are blurred, 
And your shin-bones knock and your tongue is furred, 
And your tonsils squeak and your hair gets dry, 
And you're doggone sure that you're going to die. 
But you're skeered you won't and afraid you will, 
Just drag to bed and have your chill; 
And pray the Lord to see you through 
For you've got the Flu, boy. 

You've got the Flu. 

When your toes curl up and your belt goes flat, 
And you're twice as mean as a Thomas cat. 
And life is a long and dismal curse, 
And your food all tastes like a hard-boiled hearse. 
When your lattice aches and your head's a-buzz 
And nothing is as it ever was, 
Here are my sad regrets to you. 
You've got the Flu, boy. 

You've got the Flu. 

What is it like, this Spanish Flu? 

Ask me, brother, for Fve been through. 

It is by Misery out of Despair, 

It pulls your teeth and curls your hair. 

It thins your blood and brays your bones 

And fills your craw with moans and groans. 

And sometimes, maybe, you get well — 

Some call it Flu — I call it hell! 



67 



AN IMAGIST WOULD CALL THIS "PALE 
PURPLE QUESTION DESCENDING A STAIRCASE" 

How puerile and futile, inept and inutile, 

How profitless, empty and stale. 
How bootless and vain and how drab and inane 

Is our life in this vaporous vale; 
We rise and we work and we eat and we drink, 

And we sleep 'till it's time for our call. 
And then once again we rise, work, eat and sleep — 

And what is the use of it all. 
At all! 

Oh, what is the use of it all! 

Oh cosmic monotony, pallid and gray 

You fill me with exquisite pain, 
For always the nightime is followed by day 
And Sunday by Monday and April by May, 

And sunshine by tempest and rain. 
And after the Winter come Spring time and Summer, 

And after the Summer comes Fall, 
And after the Fall come Winter and Spring, 
The same old routine, deadly thing! 

Oh, what is the use of it all. 
At all! 

Oh, what is the use of it all! 

"No sub-solar novelty" Solomon said, 

And Sol was precocity plus. 
The newest inventions (oh blushes dark red!) 
Were swiped from some nations unutterably dead 

Who swiped them from others — cuss! cuss! 
So therefore why bustle, get het up and hustle 

'Tis useless, for Solomon said it; 
There ain't a thing new that a live one can do — 

The dead ones have got all the credit. 
And now leading Pegasus back to his stall 

Oh, what is the use of it all. 
Dog-gone! 

Oh, what is the use of it all. 

[681 



A LAMENTATION 

I know now why you fletcherize your short and stubby 
toes, 

Why you prefer to slumber on your kneecaps and your 
nose, 

And why you find a pabulum surpassing in your thumb. 

And why you always holler when your fodder orter 
come, 

I know the why and thusly and the whence of every- 
thing. 

Excepting this: I don't know why you like to hear me sing. 

My voice is most peculiar because it runs a race 
Between an ice cream tenor and a coco-cola bass, 
And when I trot it forth in song the doors and win- 
dows slam. 
And neighbors holler something — I believe it's Yubie 

Dam! 
The city has requested me to fumigate the thing, 
And yet (it's almost past belief!) you like to hear me sing! 

With cacophonic clatter through the keys I let it flap, 
It skids on ev'ry turn and has a blowout ev'ry lap, 
It knocks in all the bearings and it rattles in the gears; 
No wonder that the neighbors when they hear it burst 

in tears. 
I would not be surprised if they should shoot me on 

the wing. 
And yet, you little booberine, you like to hear me sing! 

Oh yes, I hoped that you would learn to treat pianos 

rough, 
And bat at least 400 in that fa-so-lah-si stuff; 
I prayed you'd be a glutton for Beethoven and his crew. 
But all my fondest fancies now have flickered up the flue; 
I know you'll never have an ear for music's magic 

swing — 
You'll never know what music is — you like to hear 
me sing! 

[69] 



THOUGHTS ON A BATHING BEACH 

I sit upon the shining sand, 

Beside the sounding sea, 
And sights I cannot understand 

Come flitting o'er the lea. 
Ungainly sights which give me pain 

In my anatomee. 

Long, lean and lanky gnarled legs 
With knots upon the knees, 

And trunks like piccolos or kegs 
Come wafting thru the breeze, 

And arms like reeds and hands like hams 
I gaze on all of these. 

Yon woman in her bathing suit 

Upon the shining sand. 
When on the street I thought her cute, 

And now upon the strand — 
Where are those lissome luscious curves? 

I cannot understand. 

And yonder man — if man it is — 

I saw him yesterday. 
And marveled at his beauteous phiz — 

And watched his shoulders sway — 
But now within that bathing suit — 

His shoulders — where are they ? 

And so upon the shining sand. 

Beside the brimming brine, 
I sit and watch those ghastly sights 

And painful thoughts are mine — 
I sit and wonder why it's called 

"The human form divine." 



70 



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THE CURE 

For years he cursed the wicked rich in horrid, hectic 

tones; 
He cursed them hide and fur and teeth and feathers, 

hair and bones; 
He cursed them in the morning, and he cursed them in 

the night; 
He panned them auburn, blond, brunette, and yellow, 

black and white. 
He hated them and all they had with a hate beyond 

compare — 
He hated them down to Hades — and up the Golden 

Stair; 
But an uncle died and left this guy a bunch of yellow 

ore. 
And now you never hear him curse the wealthy any 

more. 

"The plutocrats," he used to say, "have ground us 

down and out; 
They scourge us to disease and death beneath the 

bloody knout; 
They take the bread from out our mouths, the rags 

from off our backs, 
And live the while in mansions grand while we exist in 

shacks. 
O, curse the rich and all they have and those that 

gave them birth; 
I wouldn't touch a cent of theirs for anything on 

earth." 
But an uncle died and left this guy a million bucks or 

more. 
And I have got it pretty straight it didn't make him 

sore. 

He'd stand beside the avenoo, this democratic guy. 
And shake his fists at limousines as they went crash- 
ing by; 

[72] 



He'd curse a pants that had a crease and shoes that 

had a shine. 
And rave at lobsters, caviar, and any kind of wine. 
The cognoscenti he'd condemn and hoi polloi he'd 

praise; 
You have no faint conception of the H — 1 he used to 

raise. 
But an uncle died and left him many flocks of golden 

ore, 
And, strange enough, he doesn't curse the wealthy any 

more. 



73 



GIRLISH NERVE 

I sorter figgered you would be 

Away above the crowd, 
A child of rare supremacy 

Of whom I could be proud. 

A modest, timid Httle maid 

I pictured you, alack! 
But all my dreams are rent and frayed — 

You call your daddy: "Mac." 

The only children I have got 

And you so brash and bold, 
To call me Mac — my little tot 

One year and two months old. 

One year and two months old — that's all 

A lady you should be. 
Instead of that you're full of gall — 

You holler "MAC!" at me. 

You might have called me, daddy, see? 

Or pa, or even pop, 
But this here squawking "MAC!" at me 

Has simply got to stop. 



74 



THE PATIENT PROXY 

When butchers send us tenderloin 

That's anything but tender, 
A hot sulphuric bawling out 

The missus loves to render. 
She shoots a sharp and searing speech 

That scorches up the lea, 
But the butchers never hear that speech, 

She tells it all to me. 

When grocers overcharge us, and 

I'll say that's rather "ofFen" 
My bosom pal consigns the bunch 

Where even steel would soften. 
She rips them up and down the keel — 

Oh, how they'd learn to fear it 
If they just heard the stuff I've heard. 

But then they never hear it. 

Upon my poor, unwilling ears 

She practices each sermon 
For peddlers, maids and grocery boys 

And other kinds of vermin. 
"I'll tell them this, I'll tell them that" — 

Corrosive is her chatter. 
But when's she'd tried it out on me. 

That always ends the matter. 



[75] 



THE JANITOR'S GOOD TO HIS FOLKS 

Slip me an ear while I sing you the son of a 

Gun in the cellar, the janitor bloke, 
He who can give you more pain in the run of a 

Season than vaudyville's deadliest joke. 
Down in his catacombs, taking it easy, O! 
His to decide if he soldiers or stokes. 
True, you may freeze 
While he sits at his ease — 
But isn't he good to his folks? 

He is! 
You bet he is good to his folks! 

Oft in the night — and it needn't be stilly, sir — 

You will awaken with ice in your ears. 
Cold is your craw and your liver is chilly, sir. 

But snug in his lair the janitor cheers. 
Do you suspect that he does it a-purpose, O! 
Do you suppose it is one of his jokes.'' 
Letting you freeze 
As a sort of a wheeze? 
Sure! — But he's good to his folks, 

He is! 
A regular bear with his folks! 

You can just gamble your bottom simoleom 

He and his brood aren't freezing at night; 
His radiators don't flood the linoleum. 

His gasometers don't clog, and read right; 
His light connections are never burned out for him. 
His garbage goes, and his laund(a)ry soaks — - 
What? It ain't fair? 
Gosh, what do you care 
So long as he's good to his folks? 

My! My! 
And say! Ain't he good to his folks! 



76] 



So that's why I sing you that lovely old son of a 

Gun in the cellar, the janitor guy, 
He who allots you more pain in the run of a 

Year than most anything under the sky; 
But if your flat is cold as a halibut, 

If in your service he dallies and pokes^ 
Recover your cheer 
By repeating this here: 
Perhaps he is good to his folks. 

Ah, yes! 
A janitor's good to his folks! 



[77] 



HONEST CONFESSION IS GOOD 

When I return late from the clamorous mart 

Or a bumper in yonder cafe, 
Do you hurry to greet me, O wife of my heart, 

In a blithe douglasfairbanksy way? 
Do you greet me, my own, with a sibilant kiss, 

Do you smile, as is often your wont? 
The truth, I must say, is the converse of this — 

I'm constrained to reply that you don't. 

It is true you're a portion of demitasse size, 

But your wrath is terrific plus ten. 
And when I offend you, you swiftly uprise — 

And gosh, but I'm timorous then! 
And that's why I quail when I'm out after dark, 

And I sidestep the wassail and spree, 
For you're not a bit bigger than Marguerite Clark, 

But you look like Jack Dempsey to me. 

I'm afraid of your glower, and I'm skeered of your 
frown 

And your smile that is cutting as steel; 
When you silently give me that cold up-and-down 

It congeals the whole length of my keel. 
And when each bonny eye shows a deadly disdain, 

I just audibly quiv' at the knee — 
It is true you're no bigger than Johnny Kilbane, 

But you look like Jack Dempsey to me. 



78 



THE BUNS OF NOTRE DAME 

I sing the buns of Notre Dame, 

I warb their beamish beauty, 
I chaunt their charms with heart aflame, 

For chaunting is my duty, 
I strum for all her shining sons. 

Departed and aborning, 
Those beamish, beatific buns, 

We got on Sunday morning! 

The crust an aromatic brown, 

As fragrant as the Indus, 
You should have seen us shufl^e down 

As much as they would sind us. 
O, coruscant, collegiate grub, 

O pabulum adorning 
The platter of the veriest dub 

On sunny Sunday morning! 

O, Notre Dame, the years have fled. 

Since your professors caught me. 
And I remember but your bread. 

And not the stuff you taught me. 
Your 'isms, 'ologies and 'ics. 

Were nothing to be scorning. 
But what are 'ologies to Micks 

With buns on Sunday morning? 

'Tis true, the ancient slickers had 

A lot of fancy chefers. 
Ambrosia was a snappy fad 

Among Olympic zephyrs. 
But for their fodder and their fun — 

Believe a gypsy's warning — 
I would not trade the palest bun 

We got on Sunday morning! 



79] 



A COST OF LIVING EPIC 

John R. Croesus owned a clutter of mazuma (slang for 
dough), 

And he led the league in grabbing off the dollars long ago, 

And he speared the shining shekels with an ambidex- 
trous fin, 

And he hunted down the festive tintinabulating tin; 

But his pile is pale and puerile when compared with 
that of mine. 

He is just a pica piker and a tin horn and a shine, 

I am richer now than Croesus ever dreamed that he 
could be — 

I've a genuine potato and it all belongs to me! 

Alexander Henry Midas was the transmutative guy, 
With alchemic mitts he juggled ev'ry thing that met 

his eye, 
With goboons of gelt to gratify his smallest wish or whim, 
You might say, as in a whimsy, life was touch and 

go(ld) for him. 
For indeed he had a multitude of cunning, curly kale. 
And he had it by the bushel and the barrel and the bale. 
But I hold I have him faded, more plethoric is my roll — 
I am now the sole possessor of a genuine piece of coal! 

Sing me not the wealth of Inca, El Dorado, or Cathay, 
Fair Golconda, General Motors, U. S. Steel, or Wheat 

of May, 
Tell me not of John D., Morgan, Alcibiades, or Schwab, 
Captain Kidd, the Guggenheimers — mention not one 

single slob. 
For these puny penny snatchers could not match my 

hoard immense. 
They resemble phony testoons — and a testoon's thirty 

cents! 
I am richer than a magnate, private banker, or a yegg. 
For I own controlling interest in an onion and an egg. 



[80 



THE BURN YE CREE 

(As we say at the club) 

The council committee on health has directed the 
health commissioner to draw up an ordinance to 
enforce sanitary conditions in "hot dog" stands, pop- 
corn, ice cream, and peanut dispensaries. — News item. 

I eat prophylactic pretzels 

On an antiseptic dish, 
* Served with pure selective shad roe 

From a choice eugenic fish; 
I've deodorized my onions. 

And I've filtered all my cheese — 
But a sanitary hot dog? 

Don't insist upon it, please! 

All my prunes are disinfected, 

I have mundified my clams. 
Ventilated all my liver. 

And decrassified my hams; 
All my bacon is abstergent, 

Carbolated to the bone; 
But I ask you like a brother — 

Leave my dogs of peace alone! 

Oh, I'm death on protozoa; 

As for germses, sir, I hate 'em; 
I ain't clubby with bacilli. 

And I love to castigate 'em. 
I'm the katabolic kiddo 

At this pathogenic game; 
But I love my dogs al fresco. 

Alee samee, alee same! 



[8i] 



TO A TWENTY MONTH OLD TRAMP 

Our home is not a marble hall 

With tesselated floors and things. 
No Gobelin doodads on the wall, 

No porticos and massive wings; 
No butlers buttle in the flies. 

No footmen foot around the lea. 
But just the same it satisfies 

Your ma and me. 

We do not scorn our humble home. 

Although it ain't no mansion gay; 
We do not gallivant and roam 

Around the streets the livelong day. 
We love to sit and rest our feets 

Beneath our almost-copper lamp. 
But you would rather bum the streets. 

You little tramp. 

All day you gad around the yard 

And waste your time in useless play. 
While me and ma are working hard 

To get your fodder day by day; 
But when the shades of evening drop. 

Do you come home from out the din? 
You don't! It almost takes a cop 

To bring you in. 

Our home, I know, is not a spot 

Of monumental size and style. 
But still it has that vacant lot 

And dusty alley beat a mile. 
But if you diflFer, little cuss. 

Let's compromise the thing, i. e.. 
Come in and spend the nights with us. 

Your ma and me. 

[82] 



LINES TO AN AMATEUR CORNETIST 

"I blow in it so sweet and it comes out so sour!" 

— Weher and Fields. 

Across the vacant lot from me 
A young man sits in ecstacy, 
And on the evening air he flings 
From his cornet a lot of things 
That might be music, sweet and gay, 
If only he would learn to play. 

And yet he tries, I'll say for him, 
He tries with vigor, verve, and vim; 
Each dewy eve, each blushing morn 
He tells his troubles to that horn. 
Which sympathizes with his woe 
And raises h — 1, I'd have you know. 

But, reader, do not garner here 
That I am crabbed, cross, and queer, 
Disliking "Music, Heavenly Maid," 
In blissful harmonies arrayed. 
I could not love her as I do 
If I could stand this other, too. 

And yet the sad and sour cry 
This horn outpours against the sky 
Would not embitter me in full 
If only it would cease to pull 
The national air at night, when I 
Have gone to bed in sleep to lie. 

"O, say," he bugles, "can you see?" 
At twelve o'clock at night to me, 
And here's the way the anthem goes 



i 



\ >.\ .1 , 1 

[84] 



t 



And here's the way my neighbor blows. 



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So I must stand most all the night 
Before he finally gets it right. 

For months and months I've been the dupe 

Of this outrageous cornu-coup. 

And all the milk of human zest 

Is clabbered in my aching breast. . . . 

He's going to play a harp real soon 

(And I bet he'll play it out of tune!) 



[85] 



A CHICAGO NIGHT'S ENTERTAINMENT 

Once upon a midnight dreary, 
(Gentle reader grow not leary, 
This is not a blank and bleary 

Paraphrase of Eddie Poe), 
I was sunk in silent slumber 
When across the lea did lumber 
Forty-eight or some such number 

Singing cats who row on row 
Smote the welkin bookoo wallop 

With their fa-so-la-si-do. 

On the fence beside the alley, 
Hopped a fair and feline Galli 
With a Stracciari pal-y 

And they did a vocal chore. 
And while serenading for us 
With a cacophonic chorus 
Tuneful Tommies treaded o'er us 

Looking for some lost Lenore. 
Who, to judge their uUulations, 

They'd discover nevermore. 

"Cats," I cried, "Your lyrics grieve me, 
Pray disperse, begone, and leave me 
Get thee hence before I heave me 

Missiles till you're sad and sore. 
You've no idee what my rent is, 
Nor have I of what your bent is, 
Only you're non compos mentis 

And I hate you to the core; 
Get thee back to South Chicago 

And return to us no more." 

But they gave no sign nor token 
That my sentiments outspoken 



86:1 



Through their rhythmic souls were soakin' 

While their songs they did outpour. 
Higher soared their chant and higher; 
Till I rose in vengeful ire 
And I smote one gay Mariah 

Full upon her esprit d'corps. 
And they stood not on the order 

Of their going from my door — 
And I've seen them . . . 

Nevermore ! 



[871 



WARNING! 

Of cunning tricks you have a store, 

But one of them, I'm finding now, 
I do not hke no way, no more. 
No how. 

No sweeter baby in the block, 

Than you, you darhng Httle gem. 
But why arise at four o'clock 
A. M.? 

At first I thought it cute and pert 

For you to stand up in your crib. 
And sing your matins, little squirt. 
Ad Hb. 

But it has ceased to be a joke, 

Some how I cannot smile again, 
You give me a distinctly loc- 
Al pain. 

Where do you get this fatal flaw? 

This early rising heresy? 
You didn't get it from your Maw, 
Nor me! 

Some deadly atavistic shock 

Has warped your being, root and stem, 
Else why awake at four o'clock 
A. M.? 

No grouch am I, nor yet a crank, 

But you have put me on the blink — 
You cut it out or Paw will spank 
You pink. 



A DIPLOMATIC MOVE 

My Missus is a lovesome thing 

When she is feeling gentle, 
Her smile is as the smile of Spring 

Upon the lowly lentil; 
She sympathizes with my woes, 

She soothes me when I'm puny, 
And bears with me although she knows 

I'm cracked and also loony. 

My Missus is a lovesome thing, 

My verse she DOES admire. 
She always lets me have my fling 

(God help him, he's a liar!) 
My guide, philosopher and friend 

In every quirk and quand'ry. 
And never does she fail to send 

My collars to the laundry. 

My Missus is lovesome thing. 

She comforts and caresses 
And only in the Fall and Spring 

She buys expensive dresses; 
A gracious wife, a regular pal 

And cute as Mary Minter .... 
(I hope this verse will square me up 

For banqueting all winter.) 



WISTFUL WORDS TO DOROTHY 

Yes, I have a small request or two to ask you 

That touch upon and appertain as well 
To curious demonstrations of affectionate relations 

With your brother who has come with us to dwell. 
And, knowing how ungraciously you listen, 

I'm just a trifle difiident and shy, 
But in spite of apprehension, 
This request Fm bound to mention: 

Please do not poke your brother in the eye. 
In the eye. 

Please do not poke your brother in the eye. 

It is quite inconsequential I will grant you, 

A trivial little episode, I know, 
And scarcely worth the bother 
Of this pert parental pother 

But I'm bound to set the limits you can go. 
Or otherwise you might by easy stages 

Advance to letting heavy missiles fly. 
And swat your little brother 
On some vital spot or other. 

So I ask you, do not poke him in the eye. 
In the eye, 

Please do not poke your brother in the eye. 

By the by, it just occurs to me to mention: 

The picture which you make en-route for bed, 
Quite a bit of beauty loses 
When you stop to bounce your shoeses 

On the apex of your sleeping brother's head. 
It is not the lack of sisterly affection 

As afforded by this index I decry. 
And for more important reasons 
Than the chance of fatal lesions, 

Here's the rub: the cost of shoes is mighty high, 
Mighty high! 

P. S. — Don't poke your brother in the eye. 

[90] 



WORDS AND MUSIC BY A MUSKRAT 

I do not feel, nor ever felt 

That this my own, my native pelt. 

My coy, cutaneous carapace 

Is cluttered up with charm and grace; 

In fact, I think the following thunk: 

The doggone thing looks pretty punk. 

Some higher fate, I'm told, decides 

What animules shall wear in hides; 

The silver fox has flossy fur 

That sells at many thousand per; 

The sable gets a toney skin 

That takes some husband for his tin. 

The mole, the dark and devious mole. 
Has got a hide that costs a roll. 
But what have I? A measly pelt 
That isn't worth an ounce of gelt. 
I would not wear it, were it not 
The only hide what I have got. 

And yet I'm told that women wear 
My hide for coats most everywhere. 
My awful looking epiderm' 
Is quite the thing this winter term — 
I wish you'd tell me why they do, 
I cannot dope it out, can you? 



[91] 



THANKSGIVING DINNER SONG WITH AN EYE 
FOR THE SOARING PRICES OF FOOD 

I'll have microscopic turkey, 

And a Lilliputian pie, 
Served with evanescent taters 

That will flee the naked eye; 
Imperceptible my olives. 

Inappreciable my ices. 
And they'll carve my pigmy pudding 

In emaciated slices. 

I'll have legendary dressings 

On imaginary dishes; 
Chimerical my oranges. 

Intangible my fishes. 
The cakes all purely abstract. 

And nebulous the nuts. 
With kernels of "howevers" 

And "perhapses" "ifs" and "buts." 

Amorphous ducks and pickles 

And phantastic sweet potatoes. 
Hypothetical confections, 

Suppositional tomatoes; 
But I'll enjoy my dinner, 

Though it's largely postulation. 
For, Lord be praised! He's given me 

A good imagination. 



92 J 



"POO POO" SAYS YOU 

I held high hopes that you would be 
A credit to your ma and me, 
That some fine day we'd point with pride 
To you, a lady, dignified. 
And sweet and kind and all that stuff, 
Instead, you're getting pretty tough. 
For when we give you sage advice 
And try to teach you to be nice. 
You scorn our counsel, kind and true; 
Says you, 
"Poo poo!" 

We try to teach you not to smear 
The morning egg in either ear. 
We say, "Now baby, don't do that, 
It ain't de riguer in a flat." 
But you ignore our counsel fair 
And rub the remnants in your hair. 
And all the satisfaction we 
Can get from you, that I can see 
Is just two words and sassy too; 
"Poo poo" 
Says you. 

'Poo poo" to ma; "poo poo" to me. 
No matter what our words may be. 
No matter how sagacious, fine 
Your mother's counsel . . . yes, or mine; 
We've tried to fetch you up correct. 
But good results I can't detect. 
And now, when we would mend your ways. 
You treat us like a pair of jays. 
To all commands and counsel, too, 
"Poo poo" 
Says you. 



93] 



MY CONGRESSMAN 

I know I have a Congressman 

In Washington, D. C. 
For now and then he comes around 

To get a vote from me; 
He proudly shakes me by the hand 

And asks about my needs, 
And when he goes to Washington 

He sends me garden seeds. 

Whenever there's a bill for which 

I'd like to have him vote, 
I trust in him and tell him so 

By telegram or note; 
And he gets every one, I know. 

And every one he reads. 
For always when the Spring has came, 

He sends me garden seeds. 

The other day I wrote to him 

"We put our faith in you 
To make the League of Nations safe 

If Wilson puts it through." 
His answer came right back to me: 

"Appreciate your needs . . . 
Am sending in tomorrow's mail 
Some lovely garden seeds." 

I'm glad I have a Congressman 

In Washington, D. C, 
His legislative ejffbrts there 

Mean Oh so much to me! 
He is my representative. 

For me his bosom bleeds, 
And always when the Spring has came 

He sends me garden seeds. 
Radishes and lettuces, 
Tomatoeses, cucumberses. 

Such lovely garden seeds! 

[94] 



CONSERVING MOTHERS 

I often hear some long haired guy, 
In wild and frenzied anguish cry, 
"Conserve the food, or else we'll die, 

Some way or other; 
Come make each mother strive and try 

It's up to mother. 

"If there is any work to do. 
An egg to fry, a lamb to stew, 
A bun to bake, a drink to brew. 

Let mother brew it; 
And if the wash is needing blue — 

Let mother blue it. 

"Let mother rassle with the tub, 
Let mother wash and rinse and rub. 
Let mother sweep and scald and scrub 

With wild elation; 
Let mother do it — that's the nub! 

'Twill savethe nation!" 

Oh, every day I hear 'em rave: 
"The vista's dark, the outlook grave. 
Expense we must cut and shave 

To save the day, sir: 
Let mother skimp, conserve and save 
In every way, sir." 

But I protest against this crew. 
Why leave it all for her to do? 
Conserving is the job for you 

And me and others, 
I'm going to start conserving, too — 

Conserving mothers. 



[96] 



LINES BY A HORSE ON A BITTER COLD DAY 

Beside me to the curb you're rolled, 
And warm fur robes around you cast, 

While I, uncovered, shake with cold 
In blinding snow and chilling blast; 

But I should be resigned, of course; 

You are a flivver — I'm just a horse. 

And it is right that robes of fur 

Be wrapped around your fragile form, 

For injury you might incur 

If left uncovered to the storm — 

While I will be immune, of course, 

I'm not a car — I'm just a horse. 

And standing naked all day long, 

In wintry winds that cut like steel. 

Is good for horses, who are strong — 
But I confess, some grief I feel 

That I was assembled by the Lord: 

I wish it had been Henry Ford. 



97] 



THE SWEET DRY AND DRY 

They tell me this here prohibish' 
Is good for fowl and flesh and fish, 
That countless blessings ooze and flow 
From flirting with the H 2 O, 
And highballs made of rain and dew 
Are very good for me and you. . . . 
Well, mebbe so, 
I dunno. 

They say it's wrong to oil our gears 
With ales and lickers, wines and beers. 
That in the subtle Scotch and Rye 
A host of tribulations lie 
And all the world will better be 
For sipping sody, pop and tea . . . 
Well, mebbe so, 
I dunno. 

The grape-juice babies tell us birds. 
With many hand-embroidered words. 
That we must drink instead of beers 
This stufi^ that's put around the piers — 
They call it water, now, I think. 
But is the darn stuff fit to drink? 
Well . . . mebbe so, 
I dunno. 

What will the seltzercooties do 
When they've eliminated brew.? 
Why smokes and songs will follow rum. 
Then candy, cheese and chewing gum. 
They'll make the world so kind and sweet. 
That life will be a wondrous treat. 
Well, mebbe so, 
I dunno. 



98] 



WIM, WIGOR AND WICTORY WERSE 

"You cannot keep a good man down," 

Remarked some noble mutt, 
Malicious dornicks tossed at him 

May crenulate his nut, 
Outrageous slings and arrows trun 

By fortune ill may pot 'em, 
But you cannot keep the good men down, 

You can't keep cream on the bottom. 

The deftly wielded double-cross 

May catch you on the hip 
And toss you on your vertebrae. 

But don't desert the ship; 
The anvil crew may lay for you 

But never mind, dod rot 'em! 
The big league man can't lose his nan. 

Cream won't stay on the bottom. 

"You cannot keep a good man down," 

As Jonah told the Whale, 
Within his Webster's unabridged 

There's no such word as fail; 
Such men come smiling from the floor 

Where uppercuts have sot 'em. 
As I, perhaps, remarked before 

You can't keep cream on the bottom. 



99 



THERE AIN'T NO CURE FOR GOLF 

(Written after reading a news story in which a doctor 
advocated golf as a cure for the inmates of insane 
asylums.) 

Oh the freaky, foolish filbert can't be bettered 
By swatting pesky pellets 'round a lot; 

There's a cure for any coco, 

That is flooey, cracked or loco, 
But a cure for guys who golluf there is not, 

There is not! 
A cure for guys who golluf there is not. 

Merry mediocos meticulously messing 
Around the haunts of cuckoo conks have got 

A squad of pills and bitters 

That will cure the goofy critters 
But a cure for guys who golluf they have not, 

They have not! 
A cure for guys who golluf there is not. 

Oh, the onion that is batting in the minors, 
The medulla oblongata gone to pot. 

May be traced to indigestion 

And be cured beyond a question 
But a cure for guys who golluf there is not 

Not! Not! 
A cure for guys who golluf there is not. 

There's nepenthe for the bean that waxes balmy. 
For the coco that is cuckoo they have got. 

Simple, bolus and elixir. 

That are guaranteed to fix 'er. 
But a golluf panacea there is not. 

There is not! 
Oh a golluf panacea there is not. 



So I ask you like a brother, Mr. Doctor, 

Don't let the filberts mashie, putt or swat, 
There are salves enough b'golly 
For the skwerl who's off his trolley. 

But a cure for guys who golluf there is not, 
Alas! no! 

A cure for guys who golluf there is not. 



Iioi] 



THE MUSKRATEER 

As 'round the loop I daily snoop 

I see a curious sort of goop, 

All toggled out and walking in 

Some fair-haired muskrat's favorite skin, 

All wrapped in it from knee to ear 

She walks, this curious Muskrateer. 

And oh, it dessicates my mirth 
To see how things are run on earth, 
How little muskrats, dipped in dew. 
Must give their hides to cover you, 
The only hides they ever had — 
Just thinking on it makes me sad. 

And yet when gazing here and there 
A Muskrateer that's passing fair 
Anoints my orb with winsome wile 
And I am forced to muse the while 
And say, "They killed you, muskrat, eh? 
But gosh, you're still in luck, I'll say!" 



102 ] 



THE LITTLE QUAKER MAID REMARKS: 

It's wrong for men to watch me, still, 

I like it. 
They follow me against my will, 

I like it. 
They say such pretty things to me, 
I know it's wrong as wrong can be, 
I should not listen, but you see 

I like it. 

Sometimes to hold my hand they try, 

I like it. 
I do not understand just why 

I Hke it. 
They say that I am pretty, too, 
I know I should not think that's true. 
But what's a httle girl to do? 

I like it. 

They call me "Little Quaker Maid," 

I like it. 
They softly say, "Art thou afraid?" 

I like it. 
They whisper sweetly in my ear 
A lot of things I should not hear, 
I'm a naughty little girl, — Oh, dear, 

I like it. 



fio3] 



LINES TO A SAXAPHONE 



You blear, barbaric beast, 

I've often heard you moan. 

And passionately pant and sigh. 
And gargle, grunt and groan. 



ve heard you stammer, heard you sneeze, 

I've listened to your neigh, 
ve heard you cough and snort and wheeze, 

But I've never heard you play. 

ve heard you crow all night, 

And gurgle, spit and squeak, 
ve heard you nicker, heard you bark 

And squall and scream and shriek; 
ve heard you hiccough, heard you howl, 

And listened to your bay, 
ve heard you grumble, heard you growl, 

But I've never heard you play. 



ve heard your gutteral gamut 

With the accent on the gutter, 
I've speared your suspirations 

And I hate the noise you utter; 
I have heard you bleat and blather, 

I have heard you bawl and bray, 
Heard you worked up to a lather — 

But I've never heard you play. 



104 



I DO NOT CARE 

I do not care how grand the stones 
They rear upon my weary bones, 
How costly be the wreathes they lay 
Above my poor, unworthy clay, 
Nor what they say about me there, 
I do not care. 

I do not care how sad the hymn 
That fills the solemn aisle and dim, 
How lofty and impressive be 
The sounding service meant for me. 
How long and fervent be the prayer; 
I do not care. 

Just this is all I ask the day 
I take the silent road and gray; 
That on my simple stone they hew: 
"Some little children loved him, too" . 
What else they write about me there 
I do not care. 



[105 



LINES TO A CAFETERIA OR GLOM-SHOP 

(After Byron) 

The Aisles of Grease! The Aisles of Grease! 

Where feeders trip it to the trough, 
And grab their chance to glom a piece 

Of fodder for the mid-day scoff, 
(And scoff, I'd have you savvy, is 

The scientific term for chow) 
O, Aisles of Grease, you do some biz; 

Kid Byron ought to see you now. 

At noon we hook our shining tray 

And shake a light fantastic toe. 
To give your ensilage a play. 

To win, to place, likewise to show; 
On either side the victuals lie: 

We spear them with a practiced hand, 
The shy, seductive Cheese on Rye, 

The blushing Egg, the blithe Ham-And. 

The Pot Roast with the Spuds en bloc, 

The Oysters on the Demi-Hull, 
The Porcine Wrist, the Kindred Hock, 

The Caviar Emptor (get me, cull?) 
The salad a la K of C. 

(Potato salad?) Thatta boy! 
The Movie (custard) Pie, ah! me! 

The Aisles of Grease are full of joy. 

The Aisles of Grease! The Aisles of Grease! 

I've walked among your trodden ways, 
And found a gastronomic peace 

That beggars pleonastic phrase; 
Redundant rhymes and verbose verse 

Your beamish beauties may not tell: 
As Chaucer says, "You aint so worse," 

As Swinburne says, "You sure are swell." 



io6] 










W7*j**«iimi!iw^jj»it-^jl^^i^ 



A 'ORRIBLE 'YMN OF 'ATE 

Of pernicious protoplasms 

I have known some goophy runts 
Who have druv me into spasms 

With their irritating stunts; 
And of pestilential persons 

And exasperating eggs, 
I have mingled with the worse' uns 

I have drained the bitter dregs. 

There are people who say "lookit" — 

Whom I hate unto the core, 
For the word I cannot brook it 

I could glory in their gore; 
There are people who say "listen" 

Whom I'd madly, gladly kill . . . 
But the super-pest is this 'un 

In my categoric bill. 

Ah, that pest of pests I meet him 

Near my domiciliar hut. 
And some morning I shall greet him 

With a wallop on the nut, 
I shall greet him and no other 

With a sweet, resounding smack, 
For he always calls me "Brother," 

And he slaps me on the back. 



io8 



THE STRANGER 

"Who's that stranger Mother, dear? 
Look! he knows us, ain't he queer?" 

"Hush my own, don't talk so wild; 
He's your father, dearest child." 

"He's my father? no such thing; 
Father died away last Spring." 

"Father didn't die, you dub. 
Father joined a golfing club. 

"But they closed the club, so he 
Has no place to go, you see. 

No place left for him to roam, 
That is why he is coming home." 

"Kiss him . . . he won't bite you, child 
All them golfing guys look wild." 



109] 



A PARENTAL ACCOMPLISHMENT 

There's little in my head but pains, 

No balance in my mental bank, 
When someone handed out the brains 

I drew a blank, 
And yet my coco deftly toys 

With stunts that certain genius takes; 
I've learned to understand the noise 

My daughter makes. 

When first she said "Gee gee boo woo" 

It didn't mean a thing to me. 
But now it's easy to construe 

Her code, e. g. 
"Gee gee" I've learned is "Genevieve" 

And "Boo woo" is a dog — or cat — 
It takes a genius, I believe. 

To figure that. 

"Dow dow" is "down" and "gug" is "egg," 

But "gug gug gug" in this refrain 
Means "Give me breakfast, shake a leg. 

Or I'll raise Cain." 
"Ray ray" is Rachael, "hup" means "Come 

And warm my milk and get my chair." 
"Mac mac" is me, her mother's "Mum" — 

I'll say I'm there! 

For though I have a loft to let 

Unfurnished, too, and rather dark. 
At learning dorothyeese, you bet, 

I'm quite a shark; 
My conk a soli)tude enjoys 

But my one stunt a genius takes; 
Translating all the kinds of noise 

My daughter makes. 

fiio] 



MY BOYHOOD HERO 

The hero of my boyhood days 

(As near as I recall) 
Was not Aladdin, Charles the Great, 

Nor Brian Boru nor Paul, 
Nor Socrates nor William Tell, 

Nor Hannibal a-tall. 

But he who claimed my fealty 

And undivided cheers. 
Whose form I see as I retrace 

The trail of vanished years. 
Was a boy I used to know in school. 

Who'd learned to wag his ears. 

I never longed when I was young 

To own a massive brain. 
Nor lead a million men to war 

Nor sail the Spanish main. 
Nor roam the world from pole to pole 

For honor or for gain. 

No wistful wishes such as these 

Excited me to tears, 
One thing alone I yearned to find 

Within my span of years — 
I only prayed that I some day 

Would learn to move my ears. 

P.S. — / have. 



[Ill] 



AINT IT THE TRUTH? 

You have a nice assortment 

Of stratagems profound 
That you are always showing off 

When no one is around. 
But when a visitor arrives 

To whom we've sung your praise, 
You are a small but perfect boob, 

In fifty-seven ways. 

When we're alone, you're awful smart 

And stunts you have a score. 
You know a coupla scales by heart 

And sing them o'er and o'er; 
You dance with airy, fairy grace 

When we're alone, somehow. 
But when a stranger's in the place. 

You're graceful like a cow. 

I tell my friends how cute you are. 

Ingenious, clever, keen, 
I praise you as a youthful star, 

I boost your childish bean; 
And when they come in gangs and herds 

To see your wondrous tricks. 
And hear your coruscating words, 

Your brains are mostly nix. 

It isn't right, it isn't fair, 

It saps our vim and gimp. 
We always bill you for a bear 

And you turn out a simp; 
And when my friends have slunk away 

You're clever as of yore, 
I tell them . . . but they sadly say, 
"We've heard that stuff before." 

[112] 



THE MAIDS 

One by one they come and go, 
Thin, sebaceous, nimble, slow. 
Every hue and every style. 
Come to visit us a while, 
Come to bring us some new sorrow, 
Here today and gone tomorrow. 
When you think that one is true 
She has beat it P D Q. 
One by one they come and go. 
Ain't it so? 

One by one, an endless string, 
Summer, autumn, winter, spring, 
Minnie, Mable, Hilda, Sue, 
Bridget, Carrie, Lily, Lou, 
Now and then a prize appears 
(Once in every hundred years). 
But, alas, they never stay. 
Neighbors lure them kind away. 
Curse the fiends who stoop to such, 
We have never done it (much). 
But the good ones they are few. 
Ain't it true? 

One by one they come and flee. 
What a curse it's got to be! 
Every week another cove 
Cranking up the kitchen stove; 
Some just couldn't if they would. 
Others wouldn't if they could 
And the latest one to call 
Always is the worst of all. 
Will it never, never cease? 
Will we ever get some peace? 
Them are mighty harsh words, Nell, 
But ain't it hell! 



113 



A FELLER NEVER CARES ABOUT 
THE OTHER FELLER'S KID 

When loving fathers rush to me with high Hghts in 

their glims, 
And prattle of their cunning hers and supercunning 

hims, 
How booful lil Squijums is a fool for orange juice, 
How she can hold her head straight up and warble 

like Carus', 
How soon she learned her toeses are impervious to 

munchin' — 
When on her back how cutely she rolls over on her 

luncheon — 

when a loony father comes and blabbers thus to me 

1 counter with a lecture on my cunning progenee! 
Why shouldn't I ignore the tricks his little shaver did? 
A feller never cares about the other feller's kid! 

When youthful fathers come to me with chests of 

wondrous size. 
And tell me what their offspring did I do not feign 

surprise, 
I do not arch my brows a bit, I do not catch my 

breath, 
The crudest thing my kiddy does has got 'em skinned 

to death! 
I do not even listen as they strum the golden strings — 
I may say "Yes?" or "Ain't that nice!" or other 

friendly things; 
A smile of sweet benevolence may decorate my dial. 
But just the same my innards may be coming to a 

"bile." 
Why should I get excited over what his young 'un 

did? 
A feller never cares about the other feller's kid! 



[114] 



You protoplasmic papas with the flabbergasting geeks, 

I've listened to your gibber now for many weary weeks. 

You may have thought you stunned me with the 
wonders you unveiled, 

When I was merely hatching up a scheme to have you 
jailed; 

You may have thought I listened when you told me 
of your brat — 

But I was merely hankering to swat you on the slat! 

O save your blather while you may, it isn't any use — 

You bull for your bambino, but I pull for my pa- 
poose — 

You'll never get a rise from me on what your snoodles 
did, 

For a feller never cares about the other feller's kid! 



I115] 



WHEN BILLY SPEAKS 

When Billy speaks, 

Gesticulates and chins the bar and shrieks 

At Beelzebub and all his impish geeks 

He does it pretty swell, 

He does 

Becuz 

His langwidge has a strong, sulphuric smell — 

He knows how to give the devils h — 1 ! 

(And, on the level. 

What more appropriate gift to give a devil?) 

When Billy speaks 

He grabs our murky conscience by the breeks 

And beats it to a palpitating pulp 

While Satan runs around and hollers "Hulp!" 

And all the minor devils, bales on bales. 

All sit around a-holding of their tails. 

Emitting curdling cries and woozy wails. 

For Billy's put their business on the blink: 

The sinful goop 

Escapes the coop. 

Escapes the toils of sin and all that stuff, 

He hits the trail, the narrow trail and rough. 

Forswears the ice cream den and Hinky Dink, 

The cunning cognescenti and the classes, 

The devilish demitasses. 

And all the vicious lure of choc'late sody 

He passes up for Billy and for Rody. 

When Billy speaks 

To all us sinful geeks 

We brighten up the corner where we are 

In case it ain't the corner of a bar. 

And start the Glidden tour to Heaven's gate 

(Though some of us get started rather late — ) 

[ii6] 



At least we start the tour, 

Of that we're pretty sure, 

And though we may not reach the first control, 

When Billy speaks we think we see the goal; 

An easy goal to reach, 

If we forswear the movie and the beach, 

The gumdrop and the chocolate eclair. 

Banana splits, the wicked, sinful snare, 

And if we conscientiously forbear 

To dance or sing or shout, except in prayer. 

Salvation then will come to all us geeks; 

At least that's what I glean 

When Billy speaks. 



[117I 



THE VILLAGE BLACKSMITH REVISED 

Under the spreading chestnut tree 

The village smith may stand 
And hammer with his sledge till he 

Has bunions on his hand, 
And rivulets of perspirash 

Meander o'er his phiz. 
I envy not his occupash 

Nor hanker for his biz. 

Week in, week out, from morn 'till night. 

He sits beneath his tree 
And flivvers pass him in their flight, 

Sweet Land of Flivverty! 
And he is full of meaty might, 

Of wigor, werve, and wim, 
But there is not a horse in sight 

Except the horse on him. 

He sees beside his chestnut tree 

The flivvers fly pell-mell. 
He wishes very earnestly 

That they would go to — grass, 
For they have put him on the bum. 

And likewise on the fritz. 
And there he sits and sits and sits 

And sits and sits and sits. 



ii8] 



IN WHICH WE CONSIDER STRIKES 

It was a pleasant evening, 

Old Kaspar's work was done, 
He was a walking delegate, 
Likewise a sonuvagun. 
"It's pretty dull," he said to me; 
"I guess I'll call a strike," said he. 

"But strikes are awful things," said I, 
"They cause a lot of woe. 
When calling strikes no doubt that you 

Have cause for doing so?" 
To me he made this strange reply: 
"I do not need a reason why. 

"When times are good I call a strike 

Because I think I should. 
When times are bad I call a strike 

Because they are not good." 
"Why do you call one now?" I cried. 
"There ain't no reason," he replied. 

So from their prosperous pleasant jobs, 

Old Kaspar called his men, 
And after they'd been out awhile 

He sent them back again. 
And the strikers muse and say, "Be gee, 
Why is it called a Victory?" 



[ 120] 



LINES ON THE REAL CHRISTMAS SPIRIT 

Within the last short week or so 

The world has changed, I'd have you know. 

The maid is always here on time, 
Her work is neat, her eats sublime; 

The janitor is sweet and gay, 
He even gave us heat today; 

The milkman doesn't tramp the stairs, 
Or holler like a flock of bears; 

The grocery boy is too polite. 
For him it doesn't seem just right; 

The mailman on his morning rounds 
Greets me and mine with pleasant sounds; 

The elevator man is kind, 

The office boy has learned to mind; 

My yearly smile today I smiled; 
I found my papers neatly filed; 

Oh, why are they so pleasant, 

And serve me with a thrill? 
They think they'll get a present, 
A lovely Christmas present — 
They're sure they'll get a present — 

And they will. 

(Maybe.) 



[121] 



A LETTER TO SANTA CLAUS 

Dear Santa Claus: I take my pen 

In hand tonight to write 
A list of things you must not bring 

My giri on Monday night; 
A list of gifts that we will treat 

As deadly contraband — 
Of which we strongly disapprove, 

For which we will not stand. 

You must not bring my girl a drum 

For she makes noise enough, 
Or dolls with sawdust giblets, for 

She can't digest the stuff; 
Don't bring her colored fairy books, 

I ask you for her sake — 
She finished one a month ago 

And got the tummy ache. 

We draw the line on wooden blocks. 

She drops them, as she goes. 
Where I can step on them at night 

And break my fragile toes. 
Or else she lightly tosses them 

Through sundry window-panes — 
Where they can fall on passersby 

And spatter out their brains. 

Don't bring her gooey candy sticks — 

She puts them in my hat 
Or toy balloons — she jumps on these. 

Or ties them to the cat. 
If you must bring her Christmas gifts 

Then bring a nobler kind, 
The sort of gift that stirs the soul 

And elevates the mind. 

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Bring classic statues, cunning brass, 

And art profound and chaste; 
Bring tomes of amaranthine verse — 

Let's cultivate her taste. 
She's eighteen months of age today ■ 

The age to start her right; 
That's why I take my pen in hand 

To write to you tonight. 



123] 



A CHRISTMAS THOUGHT 

His ears were torn and tattered, 
And furrows ridged his neck; 

He looked just like the Hesperus, 
Our most successful wreck, 

Or like the little boy who paused 
Upon the burning deck. 

"What battle were you in," I cried, 
"That you should look this way? 
Were you in Rheims or Wipers 

Upon some flaming day, 
Or were you fighting on the Marne? 
O, tell me, sir, I pray." 

"You've got me wrong," he whispered; 
"I joined no fighting crew, 
I never shelled a submarine 

Upon the briny blue. 
It must be quiet though, compared 
To what I've just been through." 

Said I: "You have mislaid an ear 
And dropped a nose somewhere. 

And through your rents and apertures 
The sun is shining fair — 

And all this happened over here. 
And not, sir, over there?" 

He bowed his poor dismantled head 

And softly did he say: 
"The ones who took mc all apart 

And done me up this way 
Were forty thousand women, sir. 

Who shopped on me today." 



1 124] 



INDEX 

Page 
A Chicago Night's Entertainment 86 
A Christmas Thought 124 
A Cost of Living Epic 80 
A Diplomatic Move 89 
A Feller Never Cares About the Other Fel- 
ler's Kid 114 
Ain't It the Truth 112 
A Jeremiad on Laundries 5^ 
A Lamentation 69 
A Letter to Santa Claus 122 
A Lil' 01' Porterhouse Steak 54 
A Man's Best Press Agent — His Mother 55 
A Modern Romance 34 
An Imagist Would Call This "Pale Purple 

Question Descending a Staircase" 68 

An Important Event 62 

A 'Orrible 'Ymn of 'Ate ' 108 

A Parental AccompHshment no 

A Plea for Chicago Husbands . 37 

A Slam on Slams 43 

A Washington D. C. Tragedy 60 

Bawp-Bawp-Bawp-Bawp-Pa 27 

Beware of the Geezer With Something to Sell 16 

Bitter Lines to a Non-Skid Auto Salesman 32 

Conserving Mothers 9^ 

Getting Even 3^ 

Girlish Nerve 74 

God Give Us Men 56 

Gosh, How We Dread It 18 

Honest Confession is Good 7^ 

I Do Not Care io5 

In Which We Consider Strikes 120 



125 



INDEX— Continued 

Page 

Lines by a Horse on a Bitter Cold Day 97 

Lines of Entreaty to Friend Wife 42 

Lines on the Real Christmas Spirit 121 

Lines to a Cafeteria or Glom-Shop 106 

Lines to a Movie Vampire — 12 

Lines to a Saxaphone 104 

Lines to an Amateur Cornetist 84 

Lines to an Old Schoolmate 19 

Lines to J. P. Junior 52 

Lines to Summer Furs 41 

Lines to Those Queer and Curious Coots 51 

My Boyhood Hero iii 

My Congressman 94 

My Wife's Brother Raymond 48 

Never Argue with a Woman 44 

"No, No, Downtown, Pop-eye, Tay Home" 6$ 

"Poo Poo" Says You 93 

Preparedness Plus 25 

Remarks on Baby Shoes 33 

Showing Up the Cartooners 29 

Some Musings on Natural History 63 
Thanksgiving Dinner Song With an Eye for 

the Soaring Price of Food 92 

That's a Gift 13 

The Brilliant Iceman 50 

The Buns of Notre Dame 79 

The Crime Wave 46 

The Cure 7^ 

The Durn Ye Cree (As We Say at the Club) 81 

The Flu 67 

The Girls of Today 28 

The High Cost of Licker 39 

The Higher the Brow the Less it Sweats 64 

The Janitor's Good to His Folks 7^ 

The Language of Childhood 24 



[126] 



INDEX— Continued 

Page 

The Little Quaker Maid Remarks 103 

The Maids 113 

The Muskrateer 102 

The Patient Proxy 75 

The Player Piano Upstairs 21 

The Song of the Movie Vamp 40 

The Stranger 109 

The Sweet Dry and Dry 98 

The Village Blacksmith Revised 118 

The Wifie's Nose for News 30 

There Ain't No Cure for Golf 100 

There Is No Death 57 

Thoughts on a Bathing Beach 70 

To a Straw Caubeen 20 

To a Twenty Month Old Tramp 82 

To Let — Tenant Will Show 22 

Warning 88 

We Meet, But Do Not Speak 66 

Well, Mebbe So — I Dunno 16 

What the Average Man Thinks 2>^ 

When Billy Speaks 116 

When the Missus Goes Away 11 

When Wifie Drives 14 

Wim, Wigor and Wictory Werse 99 

Wistful Words to Dorothy 90 

Words and Music by a Muskrat 91 



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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



DDD51Dai553 



